Ruthless
by AngelaStarCat
Summary: COMPLETE. James Potter casts his own spell to protect his only son; but he was never as good with Charms as Lily was. (A more ruthless Harry Potter grows up to confront Voldemort). Dark!Harry. Slytherin!Harry HP/HG and then HP/HG/TN.
1. Prologue: Good Intentions

**Authors Note**_**: Yes, WSOSW is still being written. This is just a rabid plotbunny that pounced on me and was getting in the way of my other story. It's just a oneshot (in nine parts, lol, because I can't do anything small) and I don't plan on ever fleshing it out to a large story. Think of it as snapshots of a more ruthless Harry traveling through canon. I didn't deviate much… just focused on the key decisions that were made. Or tried to. So, yes, I could have added a million gazillion more scenes… and turned this into a half million word fanfiction. But I didn't. Cause this is just a drabble. And completely unlike anywhere I've ever went before. In fact, I'm not quite sure how it ended up being written at all. I blame it on a very odd dream following a night spent reading Mark Lawrence's trilogy.**_

_**The photo used on this cover is from space dot net, courtesy of OurAmazingPlanet. A beautiful depiction of the northern lights over Norway. (You will know why at the end of the story). Also, GJMEGA was wonderful enough to beta this short story for me; Thank you!**_

_**Now, back to writing WSOSW. Enjoy this deviation from my norm. Or don't. It's your choice.**_

* * *

**The road to hell is paved with good intentions.**

* * *

It should have been a spell to give good luck. It was dreadfully simple, really, and James considered himself to be more than decent with Charms. He had graduated with an O from Hogwarts in his seventh year. He knew he wasn't a Master like Lily; Transfiguration was his own strength.

But he had to do something. This was his son; this baby was his to protect, to love, to nurture. The protection shouldn't be left to Lily alone.

James knew what she had planned was far grander; more flashy and bold, leaving nothing to chance, though she had given him few details. He was a Gryffindor, though, and knew every boy and man also needed an element of luck.

It wasn't any where near the strength of a Felix Felicis potion, of course; it was merely a dash, a sprinkling, of fortunate coincidence in the important times of life.

"_Fortunatus Electiones."_

James cast the spell, and smiled as the baby stirred and sighed. With a kiss to its soft cheek, he left the room, a content cast to his honest face.

* * *

Of course, there was more to creating a spell than merely speaking the latin properly. If James would have spent more time, perhaps read some of his own wife's notes, he would have known that the movement of the wand is just as important; as is the the will of the castor.

New spells are a tricky business.

James had wanted his son to have good luck and fortune; instead, he had cast upon him a charm to make good choices. The choices that were the most fortunate for him; the choices that, with luck, would give the child more success.

But there is a fine line between a charm and a curse, and it sometimes lies in whether the afflicted would have chosen the enchantment at all.

Perhaps it would have all turned out right, if not for one more minor mistake.

Magic's definition of a good choice is not always similar to that a Gryffindor father would choose.

* * *

The toddler stared into the monsters red eyes, and made the choice not to cry.

His mother lay on the floor, still in a way she never was when they played. He didn't have a word for what that stillness was, but it made him afraid.

When he was afraid, he would cry, because he had learned that crying meant comfort, tender touches and soothing words and loving kisses. But the monster was staring at him now, and the monster had done something to his mother, the one who normally brought comfort.

So he did not cry, but watched the monster as it approached, green eyes wide and solemn.

"This? This will defeat me?" The monster mused in a oddly normal voice, and the boy considered if he should cry on the chance that his dad would come. But his dad had been rough lately, with loud words and shouts and swift gestures, frenzies, and the boy was afraid of that too.

He did not cry.

The red-eyed monster smiled at the boy, and lifted the stick in his hand, the same stick the boy had often seen in his parents hands. The magic thing, the thing that made things happen, good things and bad.

The monster paused, eyes narrowed, considering.

"Perhaps… perhaps there are other ways."

He stepped closer, reached out a single finger to the child. The boy knew what this meant. His mother liked this game, the game of reaching and tugging and smiling.

The boy grasped the finger in his small fist.

The pain was startling in its intensity, and far greater than any fear he had of the monster.

The boy cried, great heaving wails, cried and waited for the comfort, waited for his mother to rise off the ground and hold him, his father to rush into the room and confront the monster that hurt him, waited and screamed, his voice drowning out the curses of the monster.

The green light bloomed between them, the reward for his screams being more pain this time instead of relief, no father and no mother, only the red-eyed monster and his green light, the air suffocating and dark.

The boy fell to his crib, and the monster was gone. He sucked in air, hiccuped. He opened his mouth to cry, and then paused.

He had cried before, and the green light had come. Perhaps the rules had changed again, like when he was no longer allowed in the kitchen, or when he could no longer play with toys when they snapped. The boy lay in his crib, silent, besides the occasional hitching sigh, and made the good choice.

Crying brings no comfort.

* * *

He didn't speak often. He had learned that speaking seldom accomplished much for himself, though his cousin profited greatly. Another rule; the same action does not receive the same result if taken by a different person.

But in his silence, he found his own power, and began to make his own rules.

In his second week of school, he learned to read, and learned that boys slept in beds and not cupboards.

He looked down at the simple words and simple pictures.

_See Jane sleep. See Jane in her bed. Jane sleeps in her bed._

The boy cast a glance around the classroom, and easily tore the paper from the primer. That afternoon, he placed it on his aunt and uncles bed.

That night, the second bedroom became his.

The choice not to speak was profitable at times.

* * *

He knew he was far more intelligent that his peers. He did not understand why they did not follow the rules. He did not understand why they made the same mistakes, why they took the long route, why they were difficult. He listened to them bicker, and whine, and fight, and change nothing.

He did not bother with bad choices.

Instead, he learned. He read books about people, simple picture ones at first, until he built the skill to read longer and harder words. He became known at the small school library, an oddity, but a quiet one who bothered no one.

He learned about bad choices and good ones, and that sometimes the good choices became bad if further good choices were not made. He learned the differences a situation makes upon a choice, and learned that good and bad often had little to do with right and wrong.

He became frustrated with the children around him, that they did not see this fact, but he remained silent.

He made the choice to blend in, to study further, to explore this world around him that was so foreign and made little sense.

* * *

His cousin was large. A big boy gone to fat, though beneath it rested power. The boy knew he would never be as strong as his cousin; but the world is made of balance, and the boy's strength lay in speed.

In the boy's books, Dudley would be the villain; the bully, the tyrant.

Because the boy did not want his cousin to win, he must be the hero, and make a heros choices. But often the hero's choices were not good; they were_ right_, and that made things much more difficult.

The boy decided he would be a hero that made good choices only.

That afternoon, Dudley pushed him down, and laughed.

The boy stood, and withdrew the thin knife he had stolen from his aunt's kitchen, and easily pushed it through his cousins leg. The larger boy howled, but he had chosen his place of aggression too well. The playground was secluded and empty, large trees blocking the view from the road.

"_Freak! I'll tell mummy! I'll tell!"_

The boy remained silent, but withdrew the knife with a sick sucking noise. Dudley stumbled and fell, fat tears dropping down his cheeks. When the curses finally fell silent, Dudley looked up at him, and there was fear in his eyes.

The boy deiced he prefered fear to scorn, and spoke softly.

"Tell, and I will do worse."

It was simple. The boy had learned to love simplicity, how the lack of details often made others fill in the blanks with what they wished to hear.

Or what they feared to hear.

Dudley paled further, and his gaping mouth snapped shut. The boy gently laid the knife down beside his cousin. Brown eyes followed it, then snapped up to his. Dudley swallowed, and the boy watched his throat bob with a tilted head.

Then, Dudley nodded, once.

The boy smiled and walked away.

* * *

The boy's name was Harry Potter. He had always seemed to know this, but the name was seldom used in reference to himself at home. At school this changed; He was Mr. Harry Potter to the teachers, and Harry to his classmates. The boy began to think of the rule of names, how power was given to titles, and friendship extended with the giving of first names.

Harry did not give his name, because he did not want ignorant friends. At first, the boys and girls of his classes used it without his permission. But Harry would not respond to them, and they began to stop.

Harry learned that when one ignores others, one is often ignored in turn. Eventually. It was a rule he preferred.

* * *

Harry walked down the street, and heard the girl begging.

"_Stop! Oh, please, stop! It's mine! Stop!"_

Dudley and his two friends, nearly as large as he, gathered around the crying girl, and jeered as they emptied her pink bookbag upon the dirty street.

His cousin jeered.

"_Make us!"_

The girl only cried. She looked like a small rabbit surrounded by a pack of dogs.

Dudley saw him coming, and paused.

His two friends still smirked, flexing fat-wrapped muscle. But Dudley did not smile, or speak. He had learned from his cousin as well.

Harry stopped beside them, and looked down at the girl. Then he met his cousin's eyes.

"Pitiful."

Harry said simply, and saw Dudley flush, his eyes falling to the floor. Harry walked on, ignoring the girls weeping, and heard the questions the two other boys growled in his direction.

Dudley responded softly.

"Leave him alone. He's crazy."

Harry hadn't said what was pitiful about it, because it would require too many words, and words were precious. The girl was pitiful; tears solved no problems. Dudley was pitiful, for targeting such a weak victim. The boys were pitiful for following him in it.

But why should Harry interfere? There was a choice there, as well. Harry was learning that there were good choices, and better choices, and the best choices. Just like there were bad choices, and the worst ones.

Harry walked home, the girl forgotten, as he considered the rewards a good choice brings.

* * *

"Help me, Harry! _Please_." Dudley begged in a whisper.

They were ten; and Dudley no longer picked on young girls in the street. He had taken what he wanted to hear from Harry's words years ago, and decided that the condemnation was against himself. His gang went for bigger prizes now.

Harry lay back upon his bed, staring up at the ceiling of his bedroom, silent.

Another rule; the quieter the one who listens, the more the ones speaking will strive to fill the silence.

"I didn't mean to, it was an _accident_! Mum and Dad will_ kill _me. We were just trying to steal that new bike, we know a guy who buys them for pounds. No one was supposed to be there! I just... I thought if I hit him, just a _little_, he would go unconscious and we could get away. But he saw me, Harry! And I was so _angry_, and… and he's not breathing. Piers ran away, and I can't do it on my own. Please."

Harry considered his choices.

Dudley shouldn't be worried about his parents. He should be worried about far greater authorities. But his cousin's mind was small, though his frame was not.

He could let the boy fail, and be rid of him. But there might be unintended consequences to that action.

This man was already dead. The harm had been done. And if Harry did this, he would be rewarded with a loyalty that goes deeper than mere fear of physical retribution.

Harry sat up in the dark room, and met his cousins eyes.

"Show me."

And he prepared himself for the messy choice of hiding a body.

* * *

Harry was always alone. He read his books alone, and when the stillness became too much, he took to running alone. In both movement and the lack of movement, his mind turned and spun, calculating always.

He turned his runs into a mathematical equation, learning the streets around his aunt's house, calculating distances and times and risk. Every step was a choice; a choice to go faster or slower, further or turn back, push harder or rest.

And Harry always made a good choice, and mostly made the best ones.

He was lean and quiet, and in the last years the indifference of his peers turned to respect and a small portion of fear.

Dudley's gang ruled the school, and only Harry walked immune to them. Because the powerful gave him respect, Harry in turn was made more powerful than they. It was a rule Harry filed away carefully in his mind.

The month before his eleventh birthday the letter came. His aunt retrieved the post, and paled. Harry watched her eyes dart to him, to her husband, to Dudley.

He saw her consider her choices.

Then her eyes met his own, vibrant green in a pale face framed with messy black hair, and her shoulders dropped.

She dropped the letter beside him, and turned away.

Harry read it, and never once thought it was false. He had known he was different.

Now he knew why.

* * *

His aunt answered his questions in a blank voice, her eyes filled with sorrow and hate, staring into some past place and seeing ghosts.

She took him to the wizard's alley, because Harry had no owl with which to answer the letter to the magical school of Hogwarts.

Harry learned many things that day, and more rules than he could number.

_Not all wizards were the same._

_Blood and name both held deep meaning._

_Harry Potter was the Boy-Who-Lived._

_No one could tell him who You-Know-Who is._

Harry didn't let his mind grow confused with the influx of information. Did not allow his eyes to cloud in amazement and wonder at the sight of magic.

He created a box in his mind, a new one tucked beside all the others, and memorized everything.

He made the best choice he could; he immediately sought out information, for without knowledge, he could make no other good choices.

He did not leave the alley, and knew his aunt did not expect him to. He had money now; old money, Potter money, a vault filled with golden coins. He did not need his relatives, muggles, non magical folk.

He made the choice to abandon them with a smile.

The first week was spent in reading, in delving into magic and its world. He had responded to the letter; he acquired his supplies, and a hundred more useful things.

The wand was the most memorable.

Ollivander, the wandmaker, was as quiet as himself, and Harry enjoyed the silence. He tried wand after wand, until one responded in tongues of green and gold fire.

"Interesting." the man murmured, and Harry watched him and learned a new rule.

Eventually, one must speak to receive answers.

"What is?" Harry finally asked.

Ollivander spoke, his tone rueful, and Harry tucked the information away.

His wand was brother to another, the wand of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the one who gave him his scar, the one who killed his parents, the red-eyed monster of his nightmares.

Harry had found the wizards name in books only, and looked up its meaning, and questioned.

_Voldemort. _

Had the wizard run from death, or considered it to flee from him? What, exactly, did Voldemort seek to gain in such a name?

Another rule; _There is reason behind every choice, good or bad, right or wrong. And those reasons were seldom unimportant._


	2. ONE

**ONE**

* * *

Harry found the train through careful and patient observation.

He found a seat in an empty compartment, and withdrew a book to read.

Only four times did someone seek to enter his compartment.

The first was a red-headed boy, exuberant and cheerful. He asked to sit, and Harry only stared at him. The boy left with an embarrassed wave, eyes narrowed in budding anger.

The second was a group of three boys, two reminding him strikingly of Dudley's gang, muscle without brain. But the third, blond and regal, was neither. His power over the others was nothing so blatant, though Harry read its source easily enough in the first words out of the blonde's mouth.

"I am Draco Malfoy. You are him, right? The Boy-Who-Lived?"

Harry gave him the same silent stare he had given the redhead, answered the blunt question regarding his name with no expression.

The blonde sneered.

"Are you deaf? _Answer me!_"

Harry sighed, and looked back at his book. The little boy was demanding, as if he had power over him. It was tedious, and he was tempted to make the choice to react in kind, to answer anger with anger. But that wasn't a better choice.

He heard the boy stomp a foot, a action reminding him again of Dudley, and then came the threat.

"How _dare _you ignore me?" And Harry heard the air move, the slight whistle of a thin long object being raised towards him.

A wand was not a gun, but it possessed the same potential. Harry had learned enough of spells to know this, and learned enough to know that in many ways it represented something much worse. A wand was harnessed chaos; it was pure will, and infinite potential. It was as bad and as good as its user.

And any wand in his direction was a threat, and Harry had early on made the choice to never allow any threat to go unmet.

His own wand rested in a holster on his arm. A flex of the wrist, and it was free. Harry did not wait for a reaction; did not wait for the first spell to be cast, for intentions to be clear, for fear to fall into their eyes.

He struck with quick speed, the first word he spoke filling the air with incantation, an advanced spell, far past the ones in his first year books.

But a good choice. Almost always a good choice. Which was why Harry had made it his goal to be the first spell he learned.

"_Expelliarmus!"_

The blond's wand fell from his fingers and into Harry's. Then came the fear, and Harry watched it with relish. The two muscles behind the blond flexed and stirred, but made no move. Harry's swift movement and attack had been unexpected, an escalation of force they had not known would come from the silent boy.

Harry looked at the wand in his fingers, then tossed it back with only one more word.

"Leave."

The blond did, grey eyes now calculating, pausing to look back once and speak.

"I formally apologize, Potter, for my words and actions."

Harry glanced up from where he had resumed reading, and nodded his head once.

The third interruption was a woman, large and jovial, with a cart full of treats. That choice was easy; Harry purchased one of everything, and enjoyed discovering the eccentricities of wizarding sweets.

The fourth was a boy and a girl, one large in body, the other large in hair. Harry smiled slightly at the comparison, even as he saw them look him over with curious eyes.

The girls gaze lingered on the sweet wrappers with disapproval; the boys with longing.

The girl straightened.

"Have you seen a toad? Neville's lost his."

Harry raised an eyebrow at the request, glanced at the door that had previously been closed, and wondered if the amphibian was magical and could pass through walls.

He said only one word.

"No."

The boy wilted, the girl sniffed, and they departed.

Harry then made the good choice to lock the door of his compartment.

* * *

The sorting itself seemed anti-climatic. While they waited, Harry hung at the back of the group, observing these new classmates of his, disappointment in his belly.

They strutted, and bickered, and questioned just as his muggle counterparts did. He had expected more from them; he had expected someone more like himself.

He watched as the blond made the choice to bait the redhead; watched as the red-head made the choice to respond. Both bad choices.

He watched as the large-haired girl from before made the bad choice to reveal her knowledge; He saw his classmates make the bad choice to scorn her for it.

Rivalries began in those few minutes, as did friendships. Harry stood outside them both, and sighed.

The Sorting Hat would look into their minds and tell them where to go. Harry wondered at this choice of the founders; wondered if the hat could also read future minds, future choices minds would make, if it knew where the students needed to go just then, or in the future. He wondered if the Sorting Hat was also a soothsayer, if it could read choices in the lines of thought.

When it came his own turn to sit under the hat's brim, he silently asked this question before it could speak.

"A seer? Oh_ no_, not_ I!_ I only look through _here_."

And Harry felt its magic, a thing of light and heat, riffle through memories and power, humming as it rambled.

_A Hufflepuffs tenacity,_ the Hat murmured, _a Ravenclaws intelligence, a Gryffindors bravery, a Slytherins calculation._

Again, Harry spoke a question.

"Then how do you know where I go will be best for me in the future?"

The Hat seemed to laugh at that.

"Oh _no,_ that is not how it works! I put you where you _need_ to go, and _you_ handle the rest."

Harry understood this logic. The Hat made the best choice; it was up to himself to make further good ones.

The founders had made a good choice with this Hat.

The Sorting Hat laughed again, heat and light, and yelled out one word.

"_Slytherin!"_

* * *

It was easy for Harry to see he had gone somewhere unexpected. It had not taken a large leap of intuition to discover that Slytherin was labeled dark, and the Boy-Who-Lived labeled light. His table clapped only reluctantly as he sat; the rest of the school was silent, eyes watching him and judging him.

Harry ignored them, as he ignored those who asked him irrational question at his table.

They knew his name; why ask it again? Why ask him if he remembered events of his childhood? Why ask him things he would not tell a friend, if he even had one?

These strangers deserved no words from him yet.

However, the Hat had made a good choice. Slytherins understood silence, and respected it. When the first extensions of hands and words went unanswered, no more came.

They were content to watch and make their own decisions.

Harry smiled down at the food on his plate, and began to eat.

* * *

His Head of House did not like him for reasons Harry did not know. His teachers did not like him for reasons he could guess.

Harry seemed inattentive in class; when called on it, he always knew the answer. He turned in perfect homework, always exactly what was required, nothing more. He did not participate unless requested. He was quiet, he was Slytherin, he was nothing like his parents.

Harry Potter was not what they expected and wanted, and this made them uncomfortable and uneasy, and those two things were close friends to dislike.

Harry learned to cast spells he had read of. He learned to sneak out after curfew and explore. He learned, and learned, and learned, and never tired of it or saw its end. This was a new world, one of exploration and power and magic.

Harry thrived off it, and made the choice to waste no time on the people that inhabited his new world, for they were far less interesting.

* * *

Of course, the outcome did not always hinge on his choice alone.

The first exception was Theodore Nott. The boy was quiet, and understood silence. He was not pompous, as the Malfoy Heir was, or always smiling and laughing, as Zabini did. Harry did not trust their laughter, because it was sharp and always pointed to wound.

Nott did not question Harry. He did not speak to him. He merely walked beside him to classes, sat beside him at meals, followed him through the library.

Occasionally, he commented on a book or spell, a simple word or two of agreement or disagreement. Harry responded in kind, and was content with the situation.

The second exception happened well into term, when Harry learned that Hogwarts was not always safe, knowledge he would not forget again.

The troll was announced by Professor Quirrell, a stuttering man whose gaze was far too clear for his facade.

Harry was not interested in trolls, was not interested in being a hero for these people.

But he knew the large-haired girl was not at dinner that night, knew she was the only one among his peers who matched his intelligence, though she did not apply it as reasonably. If she had, she would not have shed tears at the hateful words of those jealous of her.

He found the girl, Granger, interesting. She was a fallacy; he suspected her memory was eidetic, knew she was talented at nearly everything she set her hand to. But she allowed herself to be hurt, allowed herself to be brought low by those weaker than herself.

_Why would the strong choose to be weak? Why would the strong be hurt by the weak?_

It was irrational, yet fascinating.

And so Harry walked, steady and unerring, towards the loo's where she was said to be, Nott at his side, silent and unquestioning.

He heard her scream, and shook his head.

Another bad choice. This girl would perish if she continued to make them.

Nott paused, but Harry did not. He entered the stone room, looked up at the large creature as it stood over the girl, huge and stupid and rank.

So this was a troll.

Harry sighed, then turned to Nott, who had returned to his side, his wand in his hand, his knuckles pale as they clenched. Harry observed this minute sign of fear, then spoke.

"Take its club."

He did not bother to waste words or time explaining. He knew Nott was aware trolls possessed partial immunity to spells; knew their hide was tough enough to blunt any blunt instrument.

But another rule Harry had learned was this: _What is tough on the outside is seldom tough in the inside._

Nott took the club with a simple first year spell, and the dumb beast turned toward them. Harry watched as it opened its mouth in a snarl, and struck.

"_Bombarda!"_

It was powerful; Harry did not waste time with weak spells, with spells expected of him. He struck with what he knew would work, one stone for one bird.

The troll's head exploded as the light touched its black tongue, and Harry knew immediately that not casting a shield first had been a bad choice.

Well, he could not always be right.

The girl screamed again, then cried as she hid her face. Harry looked down at her with impatience.

"Quiet. Get up. Follow me."

She looked up at him, and he saw the fear there, and for the first time it made him uncomfortable. He did not waste time exploring the feeling. He strode forward, seized her arm, and dragged her to her feet.

"Now."

Harry said firmly, and she nodded with wide eyes. Harry turned and stepped from the room quickly, hearing Nott and the girl behind him. He paused at the door, listening to the coming footsteps, and went in the opposite direction from them.

When he calculated they were far enough away, he turned back to the two who followed him. He was surprised the girl had remained quiet; he had observed her before, and knew it was rare.

Then again, Harry thought, as he saw her pale face, the girl was probably in shock.

Thank Merlin for small mercies.

Harry lifted his wand, watched her flinch, and cast cleaning charms on the three of them. The gunk that covered them disappeared, though the smell lingered. Harry absently put his wand away and spoke again, realizing he had said more words this day than he had in the three prior.

"I suggest you return to your dormitory, and not speak of this. The results would be unfortunate."

Nott snorted, a rude expulsion of air and scorn. Harry was tempted to wrinkle his nose, but resisted. No one was perfect.

The girl looked up at him with wide brown eyes, and took a breath.

Harry braced himself for questions.

"Thank you." The girl croaked then turned and sprinted down the corridor. Harry watched her go with narrowed eyes.

* * *

She found her voice the next day, as he sat in the library with Nott.

Her questions buzzed in his ears, all starting with one word.

_Why did you save me?_

_Why me?_

_Why did you kill it?_

_Why did we run?_

_Why?_

Harry answered none of them, in part because he did not like the answers. Finally, Nott spoke for him.

"He prefers quiet."

The girl bit off her next question, glanced over at him with brown eyes, then with a determined tilt of her chin opened a book and began to read.

* * *

So Harry had three shadows most days, his own and Nott's and Granger's.

Granger tried to keep silent, and most days succeeded. That she struggled with it was obvious, and Harry found his mouth twitching into a smile. Not a good choice; it only encouraged her. But in this, his brain became confused. It was a good choice to have silence; yet, he seemed to feel it a good choice to have her happy. He could not have both, all the time, and so learned compromise with himself.

Every other day, he spoke to her, in small words at first.

He told her when it was a bad choice or a good one.

When Malfoy asked him to second a duel with the redhead, he explained why he declined to her. She seemed more upset with his prediction of the duel being a trap than his reasons on not encouraging a reputation, positive or negative, with the teachers.

When he told her it was a bad choice to be hurt by those jealous of her, she did not understand, but seemed to like his words. So he gave her more of them, explaining the nature of choice, and being the master of one's fate.

She quoted him a muggle poem, _Invictus_, about captaining ones fate and mastering one's soul, and he put it in the box of his mind, because it was good.

* * *

Nott accepted her, a muggleborn and Gryffindor, because Harry did not scorn her as he did the other Slytherins. Nott recognized power, and the power given to those who were accepted by the powerful.

The Slytherins did not outwardly show signs of discontent with a Gryffindor in their midst. It helped that the Gryffindor's themselves were extremely unhappy with the development.

Both emotions seemed unnecessary to Harry, who could not fathom the point of caring about another person's friends. He certainly did not.

* * *

Granger and Nott left during the christmas holidays. Harry ran every night through the halls of Hogwarts, enjoying the silence, the eyes of the portraits upon his back. He ran up and down the stairs, jumped across railings, slid down barristers. He stretched muscles and let his mind race along with him.

He heard the late night conversations of his Head of House and Professor Quirrell.

He heard McGonagall scold students out after curfew.

He heard students sneaking unhindered.

He heard elves, popping in and out, cleaning, wide bulbous eyes startled when he passed.

He heard ghosts talk in the halls, heard Filch practice spells without luck, heard tears and laughter and sighs.

Harry ran, and passed through them all, a good choice.

* * *

It did not surprise him, really, to be forced to find the Philosopher's Stone. It was all too simple; the clues too easily placed to hand.

He was being lead, being prodded to test himself against a foe. Too easily the groundskeeper spoke to him of dragons and traps and the forbidden corridor. Too easily he had come upon that one late night threat of his Head of House. Too easily had the Headmaster left on urgent business, and Professor Quirrell disappear with him.

Still, it was the _Philosophers Stone_, and Harry found himself desiring it. Perhaps it was some work of magic; perhaps he had been spelled to want it. Harry didn't particularly want to_ use_ it; he only wanted to hold it in his hand, look down at a masterpiece, and possess something magical.

Nott and Granger followed him, Nott with silence, Granger with words.

Harry did not explain to them why, or how. He charmed the harp to play; he burned the snare with light; he summoned the key, played the chess game, stepped over the sleeping troll, sparing only a moment to makes its unconsciousness permanent.

No use leaving enemies at one's back.

The potion was perhaps a bit more tricky; Granger and Nott wanted to go with him, and at this Nott broke his silence to argue with rational words.

Harry only spoke once.

"Only one can go. That will be me."

The two cast glances at each other. Harry took the potion, and passed through the wall of fire, and met the frustrated eyes of Professor Quirrell.

* * *

Harry had learned another rule. When facing a foe stronger than oneself, strike first. The element of surprise is by far one one wants in ones own possession.

Unfortunately, Quirrell was not as surprised as Harry hoped. He found himself bound, at disadvantage, in front of a large mirror thats riddle was far too easy to solve.

_I show not your face but your heart's desire._

Harry sighed, looking into the silvered glass, his reflection looking solemnly back at him, and behind him nothing but empty space.

Perhaps he should think of what that meant, that his desire was only black potential. But then the Stone dropped in his pocket, and Harry had other choices to make more pressing than the Mirror and what it showed him.

When Quirrell lay on the ground, burning alive and shattering to dust, when the spirit rose from him, the desire for the stone faded from Harry's mind.

He shook his head, disgusted to be enchanted so easily, and held the Stone.

He was angry; angry that someone had forced him to go through such trials, had forced him to play a game, a childs game at that.

He made the choice to never leave his mind unprotected again. There were ways to prevent it.

Then he looked down at the Stone, its red gleaming and bright, and made the choice not to throw it, made the choice not to give in and return it.

They, whomever they were, had sent him for it. Well, it was _his_ now, his to choose to keep.

They would expect magic; they would expect him to return it.

He fell to his knees, exhausted, and smiled.

Harry sent a mental thanks to muggle criminal dramas, and swallowed the Stone whole.

* * *

Three days later and two tomes on magical medical techniques, and Harry finally accepted that the Stone would not be passed out but was determined to stay inside his stomach, lost somewhere he could not feel it physically, only a bright presence at the edge of his mind and magic, a thread of power and light.

Granger scolded him for his action, when he sought her help. He let the words pass over him. Nott only looked him over with dark eyes, calculating eyes, eyes that Harry knew were filing away the information that the Philosopher's Stone was now Harry Potter's. Or at least, in his stomach.

Harry figured if he was going to sicken and die from it, it would have happened by now.

While Granger agonized over the effects of something so magical residing in his body, Harry only smiled.

Perhaps he would begin to produce gold instead of more inconvenient things.


	3. TWO

**TWO**

* * *

That summer, he stepped off the train and went to Diagon Alley, returning to the same pub of which he had resided the summer before. A week later, and his Head of House stood scowling down at him, his voice a liquid snarl.

"You are required to reside with your muggle guardians, Mr. Potter. Disobedience will not be tolerated."

Harry considered his choices, their outcomes and risks, and finally nodded.

After a prolonged shopping trip, he returned to Surrey, content to put the confrontation off until another summer. He could learn Occlumency in muggle london as well as in the magical quadrant.

* * *

"What do you think of the Potter boy, Draco?"

The tone was casual; the words were not.

Draco looked down and did not meet his fathers eyes, even as he stood straight in a practiced noble posture.

"He is very quiet, Father."

Lord Malfoy swirled the liquid in the glass he held, then took a brief sip before placing it down on his desk with a solid clink.

"And? This is all you have to say, after spending an entire year in a dormitory with him?"

Draco hesitated. He could not say the other boy frightened him; he could not say that Potter intimidated all the Slytherins, even those far older. There was simply something about the expressionless green eyes, the way he held himself, the ruthless way he responded when challenged.

As he had responded when Draco demanded an answer from him on the train. He had not had the courage to approach him again with an offer of friendship, especially not with Nott and the mudblood so firmly entrenched at his side.

Draco took a steadying breath.

"He is a true Slytherin, in every way except one; he is friends with Granger."

The older man smiled down at the papers on his desk, then waved a dismissive hand, his words following his Heir from the room.

"Women are a weakness for many men. Remember that."

* * *

The elf listened, and wrung his hands, and debated.

_He _had saved them; _He_ had defeated the bad man, the one who slaughtered human and beast alike.

_He _would be in danger, Dobby knew it was so. Dobby knew there was something he could do about it, ways to help, ways to prevent _Him_ from going back to the dangerous place.

But the Master's boy, the cruel boy who liked to kick and pinch and punish had said _He_ was a true _Slytherin_. The bad man had been _Slytherin_; so were Master and Master's boy.

Perhaps Dobby should wait and see. Perhaps _He_ would need no help.

Perhaps it would be very unwise to risk helping a _true Slytherin_.

* * *

Harry received owls from Nott and Granger. He read them, and did not reply.

The third letter from Granger contained only one sentence, underlined three times with sharp strokes.

_If you can not deign to write back, O Silent One, send me some sign you are in fact alive!_

Harry smiled, and placed a single feather inside the letter, folded it, and returned it to the owl's claws.

As it winged away, he made the choice not to laugh. It was late, and he hated to break the silence.

* * *

The second year of Hogwarts, he felt that invisible hand on him again, pressing, pushing at his mind. It wanted him to be a hero; wanted him to make the right decisions, not just the good ones. It pushed and pushed and pushed, and Harry dug his heels in, cleared his mind of all thought, and focused on silence.

The Chamber of Secrets was opened. Muggleborn's and half-bloods alike fell prey to the monster that resided within, along with a ghost and Filch's cat.

A dueling club was started, ostensibly to teach students defense, though Harty saw no rational expectation from it. Perhaps it was only to give students the illusion of safety; the fallacy of control.

Harry felt that hand press him into a duel as he watched a session from the sidelines, and even as he mentally said no, he was commanded up on stage by his Head of House, forcibly volunteered to face a Malfoy that was no longer smirking. The blond had not forgotten their first encounter.

Malfoy was cautions, casting spells with no power behind them.

Harry stepped to the side, and heard Lockhart praise his avoidance technique. Harry only stared into Malfoy's eyes, daring him to strike, daring him to threaten.

Instead, Malfoy summoned a snake, letting another do his dirty work, the blond's proven tactic.

Harry watched the serpent come, and considered simply speaking, commanding it to stop. He knew what he was capable of; knew he could hear the snakes of the world, and make them obey.

But that was a bad choice. Instead, Harry burned it with fire, listening to its hissing tormented screams, reminding himself it was a creature of construct, not truly alive.

But the sounds rang in his ears when he looked into Malfoy's eyes, and cast his own spell.

When the blond was taken to the Hospital Wing, Harry knew the hand that prodded him was not pleased.

* * *

Harry did not make a choice to find the Chamber of Secrets. He was content to let other authorities deal with the mayhem.

But then Granger was stricken, holding a mirror to her face with wide frightened eyes, and in her palm was written the monster's species. It seemed Granger had not been content to leave it alone as he had, her curious cat's nature a bad choice once again.

So, technically, it was her choice, and Harry now needed to make his own in reaction.

And he discovered a new rule of his own.

Not just when he himself was threatened would he respond. When one of his own was threatened, was hurt, he would hurt in return.

So he must choose the best choice among the bad ones, for he always followed his rules.

* * *

Nott showed no more reaction to Harry speaking Parseltongue than he did to the fact that the entrance to the Chamber was inside the girls loo.

He did, however, blink three times in succession when Harry told him they would be slaying a basilisk in Grangers honor.

He supposed it was out of character for both himself and any self-respecting Slytherin.

Still, the boy followed him down and down and down, deep into the Chamber, until they found the nexus of the system of pipes, right before a huge statue of Salazar Slytherin's head.

The man looked old and ugly, and Harry wondered why the sculptor hadn't at least made the formidable icon look handsome.

Still, he didn't have much time to think on it, as the basilisk attacked with lightning quickness.

Of course, basilisks had one weakness, and Harry had made Nott practice the transfiguration spell a dozen times before they entered the Chamber.

The roosters crowed all at once, a cacophony of riotous sound, echoing off the chamber walls with deadening force. The basilisk shrieked and hissed and screamed until Harry thought his ears must be bleeding, and then it lay still.

Nott cracked open one eye, before his shoulders dropped in blatant relief. Harry stared down at the large serpent, and tilted his head before speaking aloud.

"Know anyone interested in some unique potion ingredients?"

* * *

Within a day, the basilisk had been butchered and divided with rigid professionalism by an expert on such things from Knockturn Alley that the Nott family dealt with, and both Harry and Nott were a great deal richer as well as proud owners of several reams of basilisk hide to be used in the clothing of their choice.

Harry had also acquired several mature mandrakes, and without waiting to ask Madam Pomfrey, gave Granger a good dose of the potion made from the roots screaming bodies. She blinked and then blinked again, sucked in a deep breath, and before she could scream Harry placed his hand over her mouth.

"Please, don't."

Granger's eyes widened. Then her mouth closed, and Harry dropped his hand. She sat up, glanced at the other students still petrified beside her, and frowned.

Then the questions began.

_What happened?_

_Why aren't the others waking up?_

_What did you do?_

_How did you do it?_

_Did you save some basilisk ingredients for me?_

At the last perfectly reasonable question, Harry suppressed a groan, and looked to where Nott lounged against a bed, looking down at a still Creevey and flicking one stiff nose with a absent finger.

The Slytherin glanced up and tilted his head at them.

"I doubt you could even find a speck of the stuff, once it disappears into the Alley."

Granger wilted back onto the bed. Harry heard a noise from the healers office, and began to move towards the door. When given a choice, he avoided authority figures. They made choices more difficult.

Granger's voice reached him as he opened the door.

"Thank you, Harry."

* * *

A week later, Ginny Weasley was found in possession of a dark artifact that had taken control of her mind. The Gryffindor first year was carted off to St. Mungo's for treatment, and the artifact carefully destroyed by the Headmaster and the Ministry. The artifact, apparently a book, was blamed for influencing the girl to petrify students without her knowledge.

Harry and Nott shared a glance and a shrug at the news, and returned to their silence.

* * *

That summer, it took Severus Snape a month to find him, holed up in a small inn in Calais. It was enough to make him consider the possibility of tracking charms, though the thought was thrown out just as fast.

They would have come sooner, if it had been that easy, and Harry had already checked his person for such items before vanishing into London off the train.

Instead, he decided it must have been a ritual of some sort. Which meant they had one of his possessions, in the least, or a piece of himself like blood or hair, at the worst.

Harry allowed the professor to portkey the two of them back to Surrey, and began devising plans for the next summer's escape.


	4. THREE

**THREE**

* * *

It turns out the reason they had been so desperate to find him was not, in fact, because he was the Boy-Who-Lived and a national icon. At least, not this time.

There was a Death Eater, a murderer, out for his blood.

Sirius Black.

Harry glanced at the newspaper article Nott had sent him, alongside the long letter of listed facts about the man.

One of his parents close friends. His godfather. Rumored to be the one who betrayed them to the Dark Lord.

Harry considered if his rule of protecting his own also applied to parents long dead, and decided it did.

Revenge was timeless, after all.

* * *

Dudley was different that summer. The boy was losing his fat, though his frame remained large. Instead the muscle was showing through in veined lengths of bulging skin, and his face was getting a hard edge to it that made him think of seasoned criminals.

But they were only thirteen, and instead Dudley looked like an athlete on steroids. Perhaps he _was_ on them. A bad choice, but none of Harry's business.

The second day Harry was in his muggle relatives house, the boy approached him and asked for a spell.

"No."

Dudley crossed his arms, but his eyes remained on the floor.

"Please."

Harry looked up at that. Dudley flushed.

"I'll owe you one."

Harry raised an eyebrow.

"You already do. Several."

Dudley grimaced.

"Well, I'll owe you more. I'll be your slave forever. _Please._"

Harry sighed. He decided truth would get rid of the boy faster.

"I'm not allowed to do magic outside of school."

His cousin slammed his fist against the side of the door, making the frame quiver and creak. Then he vanished down the stairs. Harry called after him.

"Until I'm sixteen."

He heard an answering thump, and looked back down at his book.

No use burning bridges.

* * *

Harry studied over the summer before his third year with a fervency lacking the year before. He looked for arcane magics, the obscure facts, the things others did not seek because it was hard to do so.

When contemplating the murder of an adult wizard, one practiced in battle, one needed every advantage.

Harry had no illusions regarding himself. He was young, in magic and in knowledge. Beyond his peers, yes; perhaps beyond Hogwarts itself, if not its library. But he was not a ex-auror who had killed Death Eaters.

He was not a murderer, either. Not yet.

His books told him killing was a difficult choice, and never the right one. But Harry could see that sometimes it was a _good _one to make. Some people deserved death for their crimes; some deserved death for the crimes they might commit.

It was a good choice to do away with the escaped convict; But perhaps a bad one for Harry to be the one to do it alone.

He told Nott by letter of his plans; Granger he told on the train, and allowed her to rant on deaf ears as Nott rolled his dark eyes.

When she finally fell into furious silence, he spoke calmly and laid out her choices before them.

"Either you tell them my plans, you help me, or you don't help me. Pick the good choice."

Granger huffed.

"You always say that. Pick the good choice. What _are _you?A _robot?_ Don't you care we are talking about human life? Who made you judge, jury, and _executioner?!"_

Harry only stared at her. She crossed her arms, unfolded them, then crossed them again. Then she sighed.

"Of course I'll help you, idiot."

* * *

The Ministry, in its wisdom, sent the guards of Azkaban to search for their missing convict.

Harry wondered at this choice, when Black had escaped them once before.

He also found it extremely inconvenient for negative emotions to be pushed upon him whenever he went for a run outside. When Hermione discovered a spell to thwart the beasts, he gladly learned it, careless of the claims that _Expecto Patronum_ was a difficult spell to master.

One simply thought positive thoughts. Harry thought of how good a choice it was to defend against the dementors, and the soothing light came forth.

He really didn't understand what the big deal was when Granger and Nott had difficulty.

* * *

Harry had figured the man would come to him, and was not disappointed.

He was, however, confused.

Black did not act rationally. He had heard Azkaban could twist the mind, and perhaps that was all that was wrong. But a wizard who was sane enough to escape such a place would surely be sane enough to at least pick the right dormitory to break in to.

Granger told him the story, of how they had awoke to Ron Weasley squealing in his bed, their portrait slashed and crying.

Harry figured he wouldn't know until he caught the man just what was going through the murderer's mind.

* * *

Granger suddenly spoke from where she sat across from them in the library.

"Why won't you call me Hermione?"

Harry glanced up, felt a flicker of annoyance in his belly.

"You haven't given me the honor."

He said simply, and looked back down. Granger sucked in a breath. Then she spoke firmly.

"Call me Hermione."

It was an order. Harry flipped a page, and was silent.

* * *

"Pass me the quill, Hermione."

The girl looked up, shocked. Then she beamed, a quick smile that struck him a little oddly in his stomach, and tossed the quill across the table.

Beside him, Nott sighed.

"Might as well call me Theo."

* * *

Hermione was the one to point out that Professor Lupin was a werewolf. Theo was the one who told him the man was also one of his parents friends, and that werewolves were supporters of the Dark Lord in the last war.

Harry was the one who made the choice to keep a watch on the man.

When the professor left in a hurry one night, a large moving map laid out and left on his desk, his Wolfsbane potion untouched, Harry made his choice.

Together, Theo and Hermione followed him as he approached the Willow, entering the suddenly frozen tree, creeping into a room where Black and Lupin embraced one another, laughing and crying.

Harry bound them both, and turned his narrowed eyes to the third creature in the room, a fat balding man with protruding teeth, and beside him, Ron Weasley, unconscious.

Hermione gasped. Theo blinked.

Harry sighed.

There were too many choices here, and at any moment Lupin would transform, breaking the binding placed upon him.

He turned to his shadows.

"Hermione, take Weasley out of here. You won't want to stay."

It was a simple statement. Hermione paused, torn, then her eyes went to the floor. Without a word in disagreement, she cast a spell on the Gryffindor and left.

Theo began to smile.

"Which one do we take first?"

* * *

Lupin was reluctant to speak in the beginning. When Harry reminded him that he would transform soon, and Harry would not allow him to last that long, he spoke faster, in hurried words, laying out the rough framework of a story.

Black was innocent. Pettigrew was the traitor. Both were animagi, as was James. Dog and rat, respectively.

A plan within a plan, too well hidden from those who needed to know, because no one was trusted. Secret Keepers and Fidelius Charms.

Harry did not wait for more. A quick spell knocked the professor unconscious once more, and Harry wasted no time to secure the werewolf behind conjured silver bars. He left Black unconscious, seeing no need to disturb the man.

Instead, he focused on Pettigrew.

The rat squealed. He screamed and begged and pleaded. Harry was content after a moment to lean back against the wall and watch Theo practice the spells his father had taught him.

When a black robed figured burst into the room and summoned Theo's wand, Harry realized he had made a bad choice to stay in the Shack for his revenge.

He had, however, made a good choice by staying against the wall and out of the light.

His own spell took professor Snape by surprise, knocking the wizard back against the wall to slump to the floor. Across the room, Lupin began to shake and tremble and scream, his body rippling in transformation.

An idea came to Harry, a way to cover both his own revenge and the truth of what happened within the Shack.

Within an hour, Harry and Theo had finished removing Black and Snape from the decrepit building, exiting through the thrashing willow before ducking back inside. With a flick of his wand, Harry removed his transfiguration on the silver bars, reverting them back to wooden slivers, and listened as a werewolf had his first meal in years.

Harry smiled at Theo, and considered the next set of choices.

* * *

There was no good choice when it came to Professor Severus Snape. Black seemed fine enough, once released. He clapped them on the back and told them well done for their successful punishment of his dear pal Peter Pettigrew, and the good lump they had given 'Snivellus'.

He did, however, regret how guilty Lupin might feel once he came to.

Black also told them memory charms were useless on 'the bat'. Apparently, the man was also a master at Occlumency, a skill that not only protected from Legilimency, but over time would reverse work done on the mind.

So, Harry reluctantly decided the best bad choice was to wake the man up and see how he reacted.

His Head of House was furious.

First, he ranted about being attacked, an argument Harry thought superfluous as he had taken Theo's wand first.

Second, he berated Harry as a useless Potter, and Theo a brainwashed Slytherin without a single strand of self-preservation.

Third, he attempted to kill Sirius Black, which he was surprisingly good at for a wizard without a wand.

Harry decided it was time to intervene.

* * *

By the time dawn lit the sky and the howls abated, Black and Snape had come to some sort of agreement, and ceased trying to throttle one another.

It helped that Theo explained the situation to Snape; It also helped that his Head of House didn't seem too upset by Harry's version of revenge.

In fact, the dour man seemed almost pleased.

Harry found Hermione in the hospital wing, scowling as they entered.

"Where were you? I got ambushed by _Professor Snape! _I just knew the man had killed the lot of you!"

Harry sighed, and sat down, content to let Theo give his version of events. Instead, he glanced around the room, aware that Weasley was not present.

Hermione explained.

"Ron's rat has been missing. My cat, Crookshanks, well, I thought he had killed him months ago. Ron's been mad at me about that, but it didn't bother me. I think he is in shock that he's been sleeping with a animagus for years and years. Pomphrey sent him back to the dormitory. I'm still here because the Headmaster wants to speak to me, he just hasn't arrived yet."

Harry let the words flow over him, taking apart the pertinent details. Mentally, he sent Crookshanks a high five. He knew there was a reason he liked her cat.

Harry met Hermione's gaze.

"Don't meet his eyes."

She froze, then bit her lip.

"I know."

Harry nodded, and rose.

He heard Theo's hasty goodbye behind them, a tradition Harry found wasteful and unnecessary, as he strode from the room.

* * *

That summer Harry was able to truly disappear.

First, he visited Nott manor, a situation that lasted approximately two weeks, until Professor Snape stepped from the fireplace and attempted to apprehend him.

Harry had thought of this; his portkey took him to Spain. He spent a month with his godfather, traveling across Europe in ever widening circles, listening to the man complain of the amount of time the Ministry was taking to decide there was enough proof that Peter Pettigrew was not, in fact, killed a decade ago by Sirius Black, but a month ago by Remus Lupin.

Lupin was charged a fine for irresponsible containment during his monthly transformation. Black paid it, and Harry paid him. He felt the werewolf deserved the reward for his service, and figured the mans guilty conscience must be somewhat soothed that the wizard he ate was a death eater.

It seemed an appropriate fate for a traitor.

When Black informed him he had been ordered by the Headmaster to return Harry to his relatives, Harry set off on his own. He looked in on various Potter properties he had become aware of at a visit to Gringotts, and finally found one with sufficient wards to keep any tracking rituals at bay.

Egypt was really quite a beautiful place, given the fact that Harry was allowed to remain inside the house the entire time, sequestered among the rare books he had found, and safe behind a layer of wards.

He only regretted his inability to find a good place to stretch his legs. But it was the price paid for silence.

When he returned to London the week before term, his room was visited by the Headmaster himself.

Dumbledore looked grave, his old features twisted in sorrow.

"My boy, I must inform you that there was protection placed upon you the night you received that scar. It required you to consider your mother's relations to be family; their house your home. Now, due to your recklessness, that protection is gone."

Harry sighed, and thought of all the holes in such a statement. Had the Dursley's ever been his family? Had Surrey ever been his home?

Of course, watching Quirrell burn alive had been useful. He would miss that perk to his mother's blood magic.

Dumbledore straightened in disapproval.

"Do you not regret what you have done?"

Harry met his blue eyes, felt the push, and recognized it. Anger swirled and grew, and he found himself standing, fists clenched, about to make a bad choice.

Rationality returned. He sat.

"Of course, Headmaster."

He simply said. Harry found it easy to lie in the face of a man he now knew to be his enemy. Odd, that he had never realized how much murk hid beneath the genteel face.

After all, the elderly wizard smiled far too much.


	5. FOUR

**FOUR**

* * *

After the confusion finally became order, after the screams became stern words of command, Crouch Sr. walked through the woods and found Winky, her frail bones piercing skin, and knew what hold he had had over his son was now gone.

He doubted the boy had taken any part in the terror that night around the large Quidditch pitch; but his son was a Slytherin, and such knew how to use any situation to their own advantage.

Crouch fell to his knees beside the loyal elf, and though she lay cold and still, rested a hand upon her face and wept.

* * *

Harry read about the World Cup in the Daily Prophet. He took the news with a judicious grain of salt; Death Eaters were not a menace without a Dark Lord, and a Dark Lord would have been there had he existed.

Of course, there was always the chance that the Dark Lord was biding his time. Harry accepted this possibility, and wrote the first letter to his shadows that he had ever sent that consisted of more than a single paragraph.

It contained lists of books to be purchased and studied that could not be obtained at Hogwarts.

Sometimes, it was best to make good choices in advance, so that the best choice could be accessible in the future.

* * *

He found it too much of a coincidence that some ancient tournament would be exhumed the very month after a supposed Death Eater attack.

He was prepared to suspect the students of the other schools; he was prepared to defend himself. He prepared his shadows for the possibility, and they all were on guard.

He was not, however, prepared to be entered into the tournament himself.

"_Harry Potter."_

He felt the push to stand; he did not look at the Headmaster. He considered his choices as the silence rang around him, as the whispers grew, as the accusations began.

And he decided to take the moment, knowing in this he was beaten, out maneuvered, hemmed in. His enemies had revealed their hand, and shown the battleground. It was an advantage, if a small one.

Harry stood, graceful and silent, and walked to the front of the room, his gaze fixed straight ahead, his mouth set in neutral lines.

He disregarded the other Champions; ignored their questions. When the Headmasters and Headmistress began to argue, when the professors began to hurl their own threats, Harry only leaned against the wall and observed.

Someone had put his name in the Goblet. Someone who wished him incapacitated, if not dead.

And the Headmaster had pushed him.

So he had two enemies then, two forces who fought over his bones and sought to make him dance to their tune.

Harry did not like the feeling. He was no ones pawn.

* * *

Harry had no doubt he would be forced to compete. There was no other reason to force the Goblet to take him.

The means was simply that; the loopholes that had been exploited. Harry did not fight a losing battle.

Instead, he retreated when he was dismissed, met with his shadows, and made plans for war.

* * *

The first task was elegant in its simplicity. What better way to publicly execute a celebrity than by dragonfire?

Harry showed no surprise that he happened to take the most dangerous beast. He only stepped back and watched the other Champions primp and fidget and glare. He listened to the roar of the crowds as each stepped out of the tent to take their test.

Hermione ambushed him then, when he was alone, pulling him in for a hug that was uncomfortable in its very comfort.

Harry stood stiffly for several long moments, before he made the choice to relax. It was a good one, as Hermione immediately pulled away, a worried frown on her face.

She chattered about spells. She chattered about strategy. And when they called Harry's name, she hugged him again before bounding out, a glimmer of light on her cheeks where moisture had fallen.

He wanted to pause and consider that; the fact that he had received the only two hugs he could remember, and that his shadow had cried for him.

_Hermione. _Why had she chosen to cry? What did that gain her? Her tears changed nothing. They could not influence Harry, or fate, or the tournament.

With a frown, Harry stepped from the tent, ignoring the crowds, and met the dragon's gaze.

He allowed himself to believe it was this dragon that caused her tears. He chose to blame the giant reptile for her distress. Then he looked into the mother's eyes, saw the fury there for her eggs, for the threat Harry and the crowd represented.

The fervent hate, the caged helplessness, the cornered beast.

He had a choice, still. Both good and bad, both right and wrong. He could kill this dragon; he could slaughter her over her unborn children, could pull the golden egg from her bloodied talons. He had planned to do just that; it would be a statement, a sign of intent.

He was reminded at once of his own mother, only a fragment of time, a scream and a green light. She had not been an animal, and yet she shared her motherhood in common with this dragon. Both would fight until death.

Harry stood there, silent, as the crowds hushed, and the expectation built, as precious time passed.

The dragon settled down, her belly low, her yellow eyes piercing him.

He did not want to kill her. It wasn't that such slaughter was wrong or right; the case could be made both ways. Perhaps she was due for slaughter anyways, for hide or blood or heart; perhaps sparing her would only delay the agony of any livestock to the butcher.

But he found himself reluctant to bloody his own hands, to cast the magic with his own wand.

Harry looked down at the pile of eggs, put his wand to his throat, and wandlessly cast the _Sonorous _spell.

Then he raised his voice and spoke one word.

"_Forfeit."_

* * *

It was a technicality only. No champion before had backed out of a task; it was a grave dishonor, and a solid loss.

Harry thought it made its own statement. Harry would only play their game when it suited him.

Killing the dragon had not, neither had the effort to steal a single golden egg.

Dumbledore saw fit to berate him on his cowardice, and punish him by withholding the egg, which was also the next clue.

Theo said nothing. Hermione sniffed. Neither of his shadows met his eyes.

Harry found himself speaking, a fact that surprised him even as he spoke.

"It was my choice. It was a good one."

He did not wait for an answer, but turned and walked away.

* * *

There was to be a ball.

"It's tradition for the Champions to lead the first dance." Hermione declared as she sat across from them in the library.

Nearby, giggles followed the Durmstrang champion as he walked through the stacks.

Harry frowned.

"I do not know how to dance."

Theo snorted out a laugh, then began fervently reading when he noticed Harry's scowl.

Hermione perked up.

"Mcgonagall is offering lessons!"

Harry did not dignify that with an answer.

* * *

He had to dance, which meant he had to have someone to dance with. There was only ever one choice he considered.

"Will you be my partner?"

Harry asked her, as the bushy-haired Gryffindor crouched down to pull a large tome off the shelf. Brown met green, paused.

Then Hermione smiled.

"Of course I will, Harry."

* * *

Hermione was not simply pretty. Harry couldn't decide what one thing made her appear so different.

Perhaps it was her dress, a smooth thing of sparkling pink that clung to a body he had not realized was no longer a young girl's, but a young woman's. Or perhaps it was her hair, smoothed down and long against her shoulders. Or her teeth, magically altered to be straight and perfect.

He rather thought it was her eyes, liquid brown, the color of almonds and chocolate. Why they made him hungry he could not say.

Theo stirred at his side, his breath catching. The boys own date, another Slytherin girl Harry knew only as Greengrass, had not yet appeared.

Harry turned and met Theo's eyes, saw the intent there, and tried to find the right words, struggle to explain something he himself did not yet understand.

Theo spoke first, and it was enough.

"You're lucky, Harry."

* * *

Harry danced with her for more than the opening dance. A secret weekend visit with his recently freed godfather had given him the skills to adequately hold his own in the simple wizard dances.

Harry did not want to dance, but Hermione did, and would whether Harry wanted to or not. He saw the boys who looked at her with new eyes, saw even Viktor Krum pause as she passed, and knew she would have no lack of dance partners.

So he made the good choice, and danced until both their feet ached, and it was Hermione who led him to a seat with a grateful sigh.

When he walked her back to her dorm, he took her hand without a word.

She only smiled at him when he spoke two words in parting.

"Goodnight, Hermione."

He found suddenly that saying farewell was not so wasteful afterall.

* * *

For the second task, they took her from him.

Theo met him at the lake shore, his eyes dark and grave. Harry did not have to speak. Fire burned in his blood, anger that she had become involved, anger that they had found a way to force his hand.

He would not forfeit, with his shadow in the water.

With relish his spells sliced the Grindylows to ribbons when they sought to delay him. He left the blood in inky trails behind him, its meat to be eaten by the Giant Squid.

Hermione had been the one to find the book on underwater spells, when she had overheard Hagrid speaking of the next challenge.

The thought of that only made his rage build higher, and his lust for revenge grow.

He propelled himself through the water on heated blasts of magic, forcibly moving forward and down, until he found the merpeoples city.

If any had held one finned hand in resistance, he would have slaughtered them all.

But it seemed they recognized his intent, or perhaps only smelled the blood in the water.

They moved apart before him, sharp teeth grinned, slitted nostrils flaring.

Harry cut Hermiones bonds, and did not spare a single thought to the three bound beside her. They were not his concern.

* * *

When Dumbledore magnanimously announced that the hostage who had not been retrieved, the sister of the Beauxbatons champion, would be returned unharmed Harry did not allow any emotion to show.

It had all been part of the game, part of the thrill, to claim they would be lost forever. Of course Hogwarts would not condone such a thing. The Headmaster would not have allowed it. The hostages were safe the entire time.

Harry wondered if that would still have been true had he not jumped into the water. Theo placed a blanket around Hermione's shoulder as they watched the judges rank the champions.

He found himself even with Beauxbatons, as she had failed this task and Harry had forfeited the first. He did not look towards her tear-stained face as the french girl still wept over her shivering sister.

Instead, he looked straight ahead and made his plans.

* * *

He had suspected the third task would be the last time for his enemies to strike easily. He merely wandered which one would strike first.

Hermione and Theo were safe among the throngs of Hogwarts students, lost in a crowd of cheers.

The maze stretched ahead of him. Krum and Diggory had already vanished within, leaving himself and Delacour to wait as the time passed.

They only had to get the cup, and the tournament would be over.

The Champions entered side by side, the french girl quiet.

Delacour was struck first, from behind as they turned a corner, taken out by the Durmstrang Champion whose face was perfectly blank. Harry did not have to see his eyes to know the boy was under a spell.

With that knowledge, he made the choice to only incapacitate, and not permanently disfigure, the man whose eyes had lingered far too often upon Hermione.

He continued on alone, sending up a lone flare to signal help to the two fallen champions.

A riddle and a sphinx later he stood in the center of the maze, and watched Diggory struggle with his choices.

Harry only watched the Hufflepuff, watched as Diggory eyed the cup and then himself in the dark gloom of night.

Harry spoke, and the sound caused the boy to jump.

"Take it. I do not want it."

Diggory frowned and hesitated. Harry stepped towards the dais the cup rested on. The Hufflepuff sprang into action, as if the threat of a fight was enough to ease his conscience.

Harry watched the two disappeared, and turned around to leave the maze.

* * *

After the shock of the dead body, after the reporters clamor and the crowds dumbfounded shouts, Harry found himself pulled away by Alastor Moody, that years defense professor.

His heart raced. His choices loomed. Harry let fate make them for him, a choice in itself, as he allowed himself to be dragged along, the old man mumbling about enemies and risk and safety.

It was no surprise when the man locked the door behind them, fixing a twisted stare onto Harry, his thick lip curled in distaste.

His tongue flicked, quick like a serpent, and the man giggled as he held his wand towards Harry. And Moody changed, his body bulging and then shrinking upon itself, the ugly old man fading away to a ugly young one, though this one's ugliness stemmed more from his expression than his appearance.

Harry remained silent, and let the man talk. Let him confess his devious plans, his resurrected Lord, let himself be shown the vivid Dark Mark upon his arm.

Harry listened as Barty Crouch Jr. reverently described the sacrifice of his own mother for himself in a sick parody of Harry's own past.

He tucked away a thought, that perhaps all mothers had an ingrained instinct to protect their children, that it was a choice made at birth, written in their DNA, unable to be fought or denied. Perhaps Harry's mother had not had a choice when it came down to herself or her child. Maybe Lily Potter was a slave to the life of her child.

Crouch giggled again, his wand waving, and Harry struck.

The Death Eater had only thought to take his wand, but Harry had always carried another weapon on him since that day long ago, when Dudley pushed him to the ground, though its form was far more elegant now.

No longer a kitchen knife, but an elegant blade, a present from Theo his first Christmas at Hogwarts, the first gift he had received in his memory. A dagger fit for a pureblood heir, for a dignified wizard, for a discerning man.

Harry watched the surprise on Crouch's face as he pressed close, their chests touching, Harry's fist around the hilt touching the man's skin above his heart. He looked up into eyes still sparkling with giddy mirth, their depths beginning to dull, a slow drip of life spilling forth.

His first murder, within a professor's office in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Harry leaned against the man, and the wizard fell back, sliding off the dagger with a wet sucking sound, falling to the floor in a tangled lump of robes and blood.

He watched it for a moment, that steady red stream pumping forth, matching the color on his fingers, his palm, his wrist, painting his forearm in splashes of color, sprinkling his black robes with darker depths. On the Slytherin patch on his chest, a dot of red pierced the snakes green scales.

It had been his best choice. Harry decided he felt no regret, only a small portion of sick fascination, that a man held so much red inside.

When the Headmaster broke down the locked door, Harry was looking out the window, eyes on the distant horizon, making hard choices and easy ones.

* * *

Two wizards and one witch stared at the body as it lay sprawled upon the floor before them, a man already dead now dead again, a mystery, a puzzle.

A moment of shocked silence, incomprehensible denial.

A human's face can react in mysterious ways to a surprise. It can pale; the blood leaving the cheeks and fleeing for safer places. Or it can flush as the person sucks in their breath and holds it, the heart hammering, adrenaline rushing to respond to danger.

* * *

Severus Snape was a pale man, but his face was the only one to gain color. The man braced, wand lifted, ready to face the wizard who killed a death eater, ready to bind or stun or kill, as the scenario required.

Snape was a Slytherin who believed that action worked far better than reaction.

But he reacted when he saw Lily's boy turn, the dark stains upon his dark robes, unharmed and whole.

Green eyes, _Lily's_ eyes, so cold and unaffected, a wand in one hand and a bloody dagger in the other.

* * *

Dumbledore felt his old heart seize; felt his limbs tremble. He had seen himself as the rescuer; had hoped to forge a bond this night, to rescue the boy, to show him there was one wizard who thought him worth saving.

But he paled to see that even in this, the boy who could save the world needed no savior.

He cursed the missed opportunity, cursed the boy for his brutal method of self-defense, cursed himself for letting the situation progress so far in his fool's hope.

Dumbledore set his mouth in firm, disapproving lines, and prepared to repair the damage.

* * *

McGonagall wanted to confiscate the dagger.

It was her only thought, as she watched the Headmaster scold the boy, as she watched Severus dispose of the Death Eater's body to a place the Ministry could handle it in.

There was something about the knife, not just the blood upon the blade but the chunks there as well, pieces of a humans flesh, being held so casually in a child's fingers.

A child. He was just a _child_. A Slytherin, yes, and a odd one at that. _But still a child._

Of course she had heard rumors about the Potter boy, and knew the other children respected him with a feeling that bordered on fear or even worship. But _this_… why had the boy responded in such a ruthless manner? Hadn't there been some other way? Hadn't he known that help was coming, that his absence had been noted almost immediately?

Where had the dagger come from?

It must have been the Death Eaters. It was the only reasonable explanation. Crouch must have threatened him with it; perhaps they struggled, and the man fell upon it.

Of course Potter would retrieve it; he was probably scared, the poor dear. He must be in shock.

Minerva met those green eyes, and felt a shiver run down her back. The step she had begun to take towards him faltered, and she found herself turning away instead, heading towards the door.

She would need to inform the Ministry, of course, of what must have happened. Needed to find the real Alastor Moody, if he still lived. She had pressing matters to attend to; Dumbledore would care for the boy now that the immediate danger was past.

She thought of those eyes again as she left, how blank they had been, calculating and emotionless. How specs of blood dotted his collar and robes in a pattern that could only be caused by close contact with a bleeding man soon to be a corpse.

Minerva shivered, her face still ghostly pale, and her steps gathered speed.

* * *

Harry let the Ministry take the dagger. He chose not to disagree when he was told the blade belonged to Crouch; He only regretted losing his first Christmas present.

Perhaps his shadow would get him another.

Hermione embraced him when he finished his part of the story of that night; she muttered the details of the message carved into Diggory's naked back, for she had been nearly beside the boy when he reappeared where she sat in the stands. Her breath was hot on his neck as she spoke, her arms holding him tight.

"_THE DARK LORD HAS RISEN."_

Harry could care less about Diggory; taking the cup had been a bad choice. But he found he cared that Hermione was speaking to him of the Hufflepuff, cared because she bothered to give him the knowledge in a shaking voice, because she found it important to tell him what he already knew.

Diggory was dead, and it could have been Harry, if he hadn't made the better choice.

Over Hermione's back, Harry met Theo's eyes. The Slytherin smiled softly, and outlined upon the air in front of him the shape of a crude dagger.

Harry tipped his chin, once, a motion easily disguised as one that brought his lips in contact with the skin beneath Hermione's ear. She shivered in his arms.

Theo's smile faded, and he returned the nod with dark eyes. They understood one another, his shadow and he.

The dagger would be replaced.

* * *

Harry met Hermione's parents that summer. Her mother talked endlessly; in her father Harry found a kindred silent spirit. Together the men sat as the chatter flowed over and around them, like rocks in a stream, boulders on the ocean shore.

Whenever there was a pause, Harry learned from Mr. Granger that an appropriate non-commentative noise was enough to resume the chatter. He was relieved to find an alternative to words.

* * *

Harry did not return to Nott manor again. The Dark Lord was back; and Theo's father had been among those welcoming him.

Theo had told him as much, by owl, before Harry thought to enquire. The Slytherin did not say words of loyalty or trust; Harry did not write back.

With the short parchment had been a small parcel, and within its confines a simple steel blade with no adornment save a single stylized sun, whose swirls may or may not have contained the initials _H.J.G, _depending on how the light ran across the hilt.

They understood each other. Shadows do not betray their masters to darkness, only to light.


	6. FIVE

**FIVE**

* * *

Now the push from the Dark Lord was greater than that from Dumbledore. Harry realized that the Headmaster had been going easy on him, preferring subtle manipulations to brute force.

He was glad for the warm-up.

Every night the red-eyed monster came to him in dreams, knocking on his door, threatening to enter in. Every night Harry heard the whisper of a mother's scream, and the glimmer of sick green light.

But the monster could not enter his mind, the wolf could not blow his house down, and Harry prepared for his fifth year of Hogwarts with a deep frustrated rage in his heart.

* * *

But it seemed that a third entity had decided to put its hand out upon his neck, and in a more direct method than either wizard had yet chosen.

The Ministry was tired of the embarrassment Hogwarts had given it the last few years; first the loss of the Stone, then the petrification of students, then the death of a wizard at the hands of a werewolf professor.

And the crowning glory, the straw that broke the camels back; international scandal as the Triwizard Tournament itself was used in an act of brutal terror.

Officially, the Ministry denied the Dark Lord had returned. They ignored the proclamation carved into Diggory's body, branding it a terrorist act, an attempt to resurrect the memory of a dead foe to intimidate the populace.

Harry was not sure what they sought to gain from infiltrating Hogwarts; but he felt their representatives eyes upon him, saw her smile too often and too wide.

He did not like those smiles, for they were as cruel as they were manipulative.

The Ministry had made a bad choice in Umbridge. Harry contemplated showing them how bad it was.

* * *

His Head of House approached him at the end of the first month of term.

He asked if Harry had been having odd dreams. He asked if Harry had been feeling unwell. He asked in such an insulting way that Harry could see he was being manipulated away from wondering just why the man cared at all.

But he did wonder.

And when the man pushed at him, a blade more subtle than even Dumbledores, Harry pushed back.

He got the pleasure of seeing startlement pass over the wizards features.

Then the black haired man nodded, once, and walked away without a word.

* * *

If she had attacked Harry directly, he might have spared her. He found himself lately more lenient at affronts against his own person. He knew himself to be strong; knew the weak often pecked at their betters to test their power. The weak needed to be reminded of where they stood, for it was their only comfort. He could ignore such testing behaviors, could stare down any scorn, could turn his back on jeers and pranks.

But the blood quill was another matter, and the skin it had carved was his shadows, his Hermione's.

_I will not tell lies._

"She's a_ beast! _A _horrid, despicable beast! _She said… she said it was because I insisted that the Ministry was covering up what happened at the Tournament_. She took twenty points!"_

Harry saw the tears in Hermione's eyes, wondered how many had fallen onto the parchment she had written on with her own blood.

He put his hand over her palm, his wand on the red cuts. His healing spell did not take away the scars left by such a tool.

Hermione hiccuped, and turned her face away, embarrassment and shame on her features.

Harry contemplated each and every reason he hated Umbridge, and the fact that most contained Hermione's name did not disturb him in the least.

* * *

His revenge was perfection. He knew the woman hated half-breeds. Hated anything less than human, hated any merge of magic and body.

And the closest such beings were the centaurs of the Forbidden Forest.

Harry lured her into the Forest. Theo had went to her, told her that Harry was out after curfew. Harry had let the woman see him. Felt her eyes gleam with satisfaction at finally catching him in the wrong.

She had baited him all through term. Had sought to break his facade, had spoke daggers and given petty punishments. He had taken satisfaction from speaking not a single word to her other than _yes_ and _no_.

Now, he led her deeper, let her come close to him, let her wide mouth grin in pleasure as she fixed him with a stare.

"You've done it now, boy! This is it! _Expulsion!_"

Harry said nothing. Her tone grew more frenzied, her yells loud in the night.

"Disrespectful Slytherin! How _dare_ you ignore me? Always staring at me like I am a speck on your shoe. _Well_, this is the last time. This is _it,_ _Mr. Potter!_"

She said his name with a near scream, and from the darkness they came, dapple grey and chestnut and midnight black, manes and tails streaming, crossbows ready.

"_BEASTS! Half-Breed Filth!"_

Harry did not know if it was because he was young that they did not take him as well; He did not know if it was because he did not threaten them with wand or blade or verbal violence.

He chose to believe they left him because he was silent, his form slight and invisible beside the large woman who jumped and yelled and howled and scratched and bit, a whirlwind of action, a storm of fury. Beside such a force, Harry was nearly a part of the Forest himself, a stone boulder of peaceful observation and smug superiority.

The centaurs dragged her still cursing and screaming into the woods, bound hand and foot, and Harry wondered how much truth there were in the Greek myths of centaurs and women. He found himself smiling as he stepped from the Forest.

* * *

Hermione looked at Theo, then back at Harry.

"You two did it. Somehow. I know it."

Theo looked down, a smirk teasing his lips. Harry raised both eyebrows in an expression of innocence.

Hermione glanced upwards in helpless dismay, before shaking her head in reluctant amusement.

"Lavender said she was raving when they found her on the grounds, her clothes mostly gone, covered in bruises and scratches. Everyone thinks she went mad, or was cursed. Hannah told me she's in St. Mungos now."

Harry hummed in his throat in the same pitch Mr. Granger used. Hermine continued without a blink of recognition at the tactic.

"I'm glad she's gone, whatever you did. And _don't _tell me. I won't be an accessory to a crime."

* * *

It took all year, but the Dark Lord finally broke through his mind.

Harry was shown Black; his godfather was in a long corridor of shelves, each full to the brim of glass spheres. He was being questioned, brutally, until blood sprinkled the orbs around him.

Harry knew it was a dream; he wondered why the Dark Lord bothered. Black was at a beach somewhere in the tropics; and he had never even heard of the Department of Mysteries.

Why send a vision of him bound and tortured instead of something far more believable?

When he awoke, Harry took a cold shower, and ran until his muscles ached to remove the sound of the wizards screams.

It must be a new means of torture.

* * *

The Headmaster called him to his office the next day.

Dumbledore explained of a break in at the Ministry; how the Dark Lord himself had appeared alive and well and stolen a valuable artefact, revealing himself once and for all to the entire world.

Then, the headmaster began to spin his story.

He told of prophecy, of sacrifice and love.

…_.and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives..._

"Your mothers love, Harry. That is the weapon, that is your strength. Love is something Tom could never understand, can never fight."

Harry wondered why the Headmaster thought Harry could bottle an emotion and toss it at the Dark Lord to slay him. He wondered why the burden of murdering another man had been given to him willingly. He wondered why the old wizard did not push him in this very moment, but left his mind alone and rational.

He decided he would not fight against fate, if that was what it was. He rather liked the idea of being the one to kill the red-eyed monster of his dreams. After all, he had not been able to take care of Pettigrew personally. The killer of his parents themselves would be a far more pleasurable life to take.

If Dumbledore saw that murderous pleasure in Harry's eyes, he did not react to it. From a perch across the room, a golden phoenix sang a mournful tune of remorse.

Harry thought the sound wasn't pleasant at all.

* * *

He told his shadows the entire story. The choice was an easy one; they were the only ones he trusted. After Theo left the classroom Harry had chosen for the conversation, Hermione lingered. She hovered close to him, his shadow, moving against the light.

Harry turned to her, saw the fear in her eyes, but it was not fear _of _him it was fear _for_ him, and he recognized the difference.

He made a choice.

Harry reached out a hand and touched her cheek, and waited for her to make her own choice.

Hermione turned her face into his palm.

He stepped closer, looked directly into her eyes, and saw another emotion growing in their depths.

When he pressed his lips to hers, she sighed into his mouth, and her delicate hands clasped his robes in a tight grip.

* * *

Harry invited Hermione to visit Egypt and his own sanctuary that summer. He told her parents that Chrysanthemum, his housekeeper, would be chaperone. He did not tell them they Chrys was his house elf, and bound to obey his every order.

The two weeks she stayed with him were the best of the entire summer.

It was the calm before the storm.


	7. SIX

**SIX**

* * *

Something was wrong with the Headmaster.

Harry saw it from where he sat beside Theo at the Slytherin table.

But Dumbledore was not the only change. There were more than a few holes were students should have sat at the Slytherin table. And the Slytherins were not the only ones to suffer losses to their numbers.

Harry wondered if that was a good choice of the parents. Where the students truly safer away from Hogwarts? There had already been several reported attacks by Death Eaters in the last month.

Perhaps they knew something he did not. Or perhaps they left the country entirely.

Harry returned his solemn gaze to the Headmaster, studied the way the man no longer looked him in the eye.

When it was announced the their Head of House was the new Defense professor, life was finally breathed back into the silent Slytherins, as they stood with a riotous cheer.

Harry looked at Theo instead as the boy clapped, and remained firmly seated.

* * *

Defense class with Snape was perhaps the best Harry had experienced. He enjoyed the mans acerbic comments on his classmates stupidity; he quite agreed with him.

Snape never directed his sharp tongue towards Harry; In fact, at times, Harry felt as if he was invisible. It was an enjoyable sensation, and allowed him to relax. The relaxing in turn made him tense.

A rule: a wise man seeks to put his enemies at ease, the better to strike at them from behind.

Hermione didn't like that she liked Snape's teaching style. Harry saw her struggle with it, the choice to be happy or angry or depressed.

She liked the harder material. She hated the mans teaching style. She liked the no nonsense attitude, hated the insults.

Hermione was a walking contradiction, and Harry wondered how she kept upright, even as he found it fascinating.

Harry did not hold her hand. When he walked through the halls, she still walked behind him beside Theo, his two shadows, nothing changed. Harry did not exchange the pleasantries he saw other couples do; He choose anonymity for reasons both complex and simple.

He was selfish of her; He would not share any part of her with anyone else, even the sight of her kiss.

Theo knew.

The Slytherin watched them with envious eyes, and told him that Greengrass was under a betrothal contract. Most Slytherins did things in such ways.

Harry could see the wisdom in such a choice. He merely wondered why the parents thought their children would choose to follow it.

* * *

He chose to lay aside time to obsess over her. Time that was theirs alone, free of Theo or study or choices.

Instead, he taught her that there were more ways to communicate than with endless wasteful words strung together. That at times words were not necessary and even useless.

And Hermione taught Harry what it meant to be truly speechless.

* * *

The material should have been more difficult that year. Instead, Harry found himself doing his own research, his own studies, his mind progressed so far beyond Hogwarts that at times he thought the classes his true payment for the room and board.

Harry focused on advanced wand techniques, delved into rituals, began practicing wordless and wandless magic. His shadows followed behind him, each branching in their own directions, expanding on his own path. Hermione made potions in an abandoned classroom from books in the restricted section. She was now the new potions professor, Slughorn's, star pupil. Theo bought a dagger and drew runes onto his cheek that allowed him to see magic, then had to have Harry devise a glamour strong enough to cover the scars he could not see. Harry did not ask what other scars the boy already bore out of sight.

He noticed Malfoy was acting strange. The blond was skittish, jumping at odd moments, always looking over his shoulder. When Harry ran through the halls at night he found the boy skulking about every odd nook and cranny, searching, hiding.

Harry took note of this and filed it away for later study. Not the best choice, but a good one nonetheless.

During the Christmas holidays, the Headmaster called for him again.

The elderly wizard was disappointed in him. It wasn't that the man wouldn't meet his eyes any longer. It was the tone of his voice, the frequent reminders of his task.

The one fate had given him, to kill a Dark Lord, the one Harry hadn't done properly as a child and so must try again.

The Headmaster dropped hints and left clues in the air, a visible trail to follow and a subtle push to get on with the chase.

Harry did not like to be pushed, and so made the choice to leave the given path and search instead for the truth behind the Headmaster's game.

Slughorn was the obvious king in this particular battle of information. He held some information the Headmaster wanted; or some information the man wanted _Harry_ to find, without telling him directly.

Harry decided the direct method was the most preferable.

Hermione brewed the Veritaserum. Theo got the man to open the door. Harry cast the spells.

And together, his shadows and he learned of horcruxes.

* * *

_A dark and twisted magic_, the wizard said in a dull voice. _Evil and arcane. _Forbidden.

_Fascinating._

To split a soul to prolong a life.

Harry saw the flaws in such a choice; the increasing lack of intuition, sanity, magical strength. He saw the immortality, and how it would override all objections the Dark Lord might have had.

He finally knew the truth in Voldemort's name.

_Better a zombie alive than a wizard dead_, is what a man who flees death says to himself. _Better weak in many battles, than strong in only one._

To Harry, it was a bad choice, and one he would remedy for the wizard.

They left Slughorn packing his things in a frantic scramble, moaning of retribution and torture and fear, and began the list.

Hermione connected the diary from second year, having learned more from a subdued Ginny Weasley than she had ever shared with her silent friends.

Slughorn said the brilliant young Tom Riddle had mentioned the word seven. So seven there must be.

* * *

Again, a third time, the Headmaster called for him.

This time, it was not disappointment, but rage, and those piercing blue eyes skewered him as he stepped through the door, and the push whipped his head back with shocking force.

And to his surprise, Harry found himself still standing. Found his mind a safe haven from the chaotic magic of the Headmaster, a lighthouse before the raging ocean, a thing of brick and stone with its feet upon solid ground, strong and immortal in a storm, worn down only through time and acts of God.

The Headmaster backed away, sat down, put his white head in wrinkled hands, one of which was black and twisted and poisoned.

Harry spoke.

"Horcruxes. How many have you destroyed?"

Dumbledore straightened, met Harry's stare.

"You incapacitated a professor of this school. You drugged him against his will. You forced him to speak of terrors, a brute method that should not have worked at all."

Harry smiled slightly. He did not mention Theo's rituals or his own spells; let the man think Veritaserum was the worst of what they had done to the man.

"If you thought it would, you'd have done it yourself."

Dumbledore's gaze hardened.

"Sometimes things must be done for the greater good."

Harry thought of that choice; the one to put many things above the few. It made sense, unless those you loved were among the few.

"Then why are you angry?"

Dumbledore slammed his good hand upon his desk. The phoenix on its perch cried.

"You are not who you _should_ be!"

The statement was honest. Harry wondered if he also meant, _the person I sought to make you._

Harry said nothing this time. In his silence, the Headmaster continued, looking away, his eyes dull and voice flat.

"There are a few, most tied to the founders. That diary the Ministry destroyed with fiendfyre. A ring from the Gaunt family that I have taken care of in the same manner, though not before this."

He raised the blackened arm, flexed it. Harry wondered if the fact that it had not been healed yet meant it never would be. He wondered if the black would grow.

"A locket of Salazar Slytherin's which I found in your godfathers house, also destroyed. Helga Hufflepuff's Cup which remains sequestered within the Lestrange Vault in Gringotts according to my sources. Rowena Ravenclaws Diadem, which is hidden in this very school so deeply I can not find it. His serpent, Nagini, the last."

Harry counted.

"That is only six. Slughorn said seven."

The Headmaster met his gaze.

"I'm sure he considers himself the seventh part of himself."

The sentence rang false, a bad choice of words. That was not how the numbers worked. Voldemort would be the center of a seven pointed star, not a mere point on its shape.

Dumbledore was hiding something. Harry did not break the gaze first, and still the phoenix warbled and moaned in distress, an aggravating sound.

The Headmaster stood, then turned away in disgust, his back clothed in regal blue robes dotted with golden stars.

* * *

Hermione added the details to the list with a smile and a flourish of her pen.

She smiled up at the two boys as they glowered down at the list.

"Well, the good news is he's nearly half way dead already!"

Harry sighed.

* * *

He questioned his choice to follow the prophecy he did not believe in. He questioned his choice to bring his shadows into the battle with him. He questioned himself again and again, and still he made the good choice, the best choice.

A rule to follow: _A harmless enemy is one who is dead._

* * *

The diadem was the first they sought, because it was said to be in the castle itself. They spent the last month of term searching for it, from dungeon to tower, even delving into the Chamber of Secrets again.

Finally, it was Harry himself who found the room as he ran through the halls and saw Malfoy pace three times beside a portrait of dancing trolls, whispering frantically under his breath.

_I need the room of Hidden Things, I need the Room of Hidden things, I need the Room of Hidden things._

Well, that sounded like exactly what Harry needed as well. He slipped through behind the Slytherin under his customary invisibility spell, and was graced with a large room cluttered with thousands, perhaps millions, of hidden things.

He ignored Malfoy as the blond cast spells at some cupboard, but walked the aisle, searching for a crown.

When he found it, it pushed at him. It whispered in sibilant tones, it promised and cajoled and threatened. It did not stop until deep in the Chamber of Secrets when Harry summoned Fiendfyre and watched its gleaming surface crack in the brilliant blue flames.

* * *

Theo twirled a quill through his long fingers, lounging back against a chair in the Room of Hidden Things. Hermione couldn't keep her eyes off the objects around them, longing in every bone.

Harry broke the silence, bringing their startled eyes around to him.

"A serpent, a cup, and the wizard himself."

Theo raised an eyebrow.

"I can think of little we can do about either from here."

Hermione bit her lip, sliding closer to Harry to reach out and tentatively take his hand. Harry allowed the gesture, and saw Theo glance at their hands as the woman spoke.

"Gringotts will not be easy to break in to. Only a goblin can open those vaults besides the owners themselves. and they are _all_ cursed."

Theo looked away, nodded. Harry watched him, and his mouth stretched into a sharp smile.

"Then we get a goblin."

* * *

It was as Harry was planning possible escapes from Gringotts caverns that the screams started.

He paused in his run, his feet on the third floor, and leaned over the edge of the nearby staircase to see spellfire above.

There were Death Eaters in the castle, and he had a choice.

His shadows were separated from him, each inside their dorms. He could go to one or the other, assure their safety, defend them.

Or, he could eliminate the threats independently, and trust his shadows to defend themselves if encountered.

He did not like the choices in front of him; but not making a choice was the only bad one he could take.

He followed the light, running up the stairs two at a time, and found two dark robed figures.

They whirled towards him, wands aloft, and Harry cut them down with savage flicks of his wrist and bursts of violet light. He heard them fall to the floor behind him and never paused.

A man leaped from the shadows, mouth stretched in feral snarl, teeth too sharp and gleaming.

Werewolf.

Harry stopped running, and the man hit where Harry should have been in that moment, whirling too fast, fingers bent and clawed.

Harry drew his dagger and made the steel into silver.

When the werewolf launched again, Harry stepped back but his dagger did not move with him. It hung in the air for a moment before the chest of the beast passed through it.

But not unscathed.

The beast fell and twisted and howled, great gasping breaths, clawing at the chest where the dagger still was, unable to grasp the silver handle to withdraw the blade.

Harry stayed long enough to watch foam bubble from his mouth, then left him to perish alone.

He entered the Astronomy Tower at a run.

* * *

Malfoy, eyes and hair wild, had Dumbledore's wand in his hand, leveled at the venerable wizard. Snape stood beside him, mouth twisted and grim.

"Kill him. _Now!"_

Dumbledore remained silent as stone, and Harry knew in that moment the man _had_ been dying, and this was a death he had determined a good choice. The wizard did not need a wand to do battle any more than he needed glasses to see. He had made a choice to fall at the wand of Malfoy.

And Harry wasn't pleased with it.

Malfoy shouted the killing spell, and the green light fizzled and fell short. The boy sobbed.

Harry stepped on to the roof, and saw shock spread across all three of their features. He did not wait for their response.

His first spell took Snape in the chest, the black robed man falling down to his knees, bound. Malfoy got off two spells before Harry incapacitated him as well, always in motion, always moving closer.

He turned to face the Headmaster, who had not moved.

Harry wondered if he could have killed this man if he had not wanted to die.

"You pushed me." Harry said softly, finding the words easily for once, now knowing why the villains in stories talked instead of acted. Some things needed to be said; some words the air drew from the mouths of bad men against their will, a last punishment. "You forced me."

The Headmaster stood tall, his blue eyes sad and blue and wet.

"I did what I thought best, Harry. You had to make the right choices when the time came."

Harry laughed as he raised his wand.

"I always make the good choice, Headmaster Dumbledore_. Always_."

And he said the words, the two words that spelled death on emerald light, he reveled that this choice was his as well.

"_Avada Kedavra."_

* * *

Harry turned to look upon the unconscious bodies of Snape and Malfoy. With a flick of his wrist, he allowed them to begin to wake.

He left the room at a slow jog, as fast a pace as safe on the stairs, and contemplated whether either of the two wizards would share what they suspected had happened upon the roof of the Astronomy Tower.

Some choices were his; some were not.

* * *

The Headmaster had left a book for Hermione of wizarding fairy tales. To Harry, he left an invisibility cloak that had been his fathers, and the blackened Gaunt ring that had been a horcrux. Harry could not see the connection between these gifts; Hermione looked haunted.

At the funeral, the phoenix sang a mournful dirge that rang in his ears like nails on a chalkboard.

When the bird burst into flames, he imagined it was a divine deity taking mercy on them all.

Snape and Malfoy had fled, along with what remained of the Death Eater force. The deaths within the castle of their number had been blamed on infighting; Dumbledores death on the traitor Snape.

When the fervor quieted and the weeping faded away, Harry went to the Room of Hidden Things, basking in the quiet with his shadows.

Then he told them the simple truth, and watched Hermione pale and shake and step away from him.

Theo stood resolute, his gaze as quiet as ever, but Harry could see the thoughts in his head.

_Vindication_, the pleasure of having made a good choice six years ago when he remained silent at Harry's side and not loud at Malfoy's.

Hermione was not so cold. She showed revulsion and fear, and over it all despair, because the fact that Harry had killed the Headmaster of Hogwarts would no longer make her run. She was bound as tightly to him as Theo, in ropes of loyalty and time and love. She could no more leave him than a tree could walk from the ground it was planted in because it no longer liked the angle of the sun.

Harry walked to her, watched her face twist, saw the tears his choice had put upon her face.

He stretched out his hand, and waited.

She looked down at his open palm.

Then she placed her hand in his with a grip too tight to be comfortable.


	8. SEVEN

**SEVEN**

* * *

Without the Headmasters insistence, Harry saw no reason to plan to return to Hogwarts. He had learned all he could there; the library no longer held secrets for him.

The summer before what should have been his seventh term he instead planned the death of a Dark Lord. Every remaining piece of him, in any case.

Hermione sent her parents away. She did not tell him how, or where. She only sent him an owl requesting to stay with him wherever he went. Harry did not have to consider an answer. He only stopped to pick up Theo first, and with both his shadows at his side they went about acquiring a goblin.

He could have done it with magic, with ritual or spell or potion. Such a thing was possible, but a bad choice.

Harry had no desire to war with the goblins, for they held his gold.

Instead, he gathered what goblins desired most of anything, gold and bronze and silver, precious stones and metals, nearly the entirety of his trust vault, but only a mere fraction of the Potter fortune.

And he gave it to an aspiring young goblin by the name of Sickletooth, who in exchange gladly placed his palm upon a certain vault in the depths of Gringotts and made it open.

Hermione warned the Lestrange Vault would be cursed. Theo was the one who recognized what curses there was, and gave them their choices.

They could spend time dispelling the two curses, and risk being discovered before they could steal the cup.

They could dispel one curse or the other to save time, and bear with the other with difficulty. As one curse was to viciously _burn_ at a touch and the other to _duplicate _anything touched, this option seemed particularly bad.

Or they could simply destroy the entire Vault.

Sickletooth looked very sad at this option, but Harry decided it was a good one.

With one cast Fiendfyre directed at Hufflepuff's Cup, Harry let the goblin close the door, and listened to the wail of a dying spirit through the thick metal.

* * *

The rest of the summer was spent outside of Britain, keeping abreast of the news by the Daily Prophet before it was taken over by a rotten Ministry, and then by word of mouth of the refugees who fled across the Channel to Calais.

Harry wondered what other governments were doing about the upstart Dark Lord taking over the British Ministry. He wondered if they all were guessing who would be next.

French Aurors roamed the streets of every wizarding place they went in France. Hermione knew enough of the language to get them by due to her parents frequent vacations there. Theo wanted them to relocate to Spain, farther away from the reach of the Death Eaters and to an area where he, instead, knew the native tongue.

Harry instead made the choice to return to Britain, and his shadows followed him.

The snake would always be on Voldemort's person. Voldemort himself needed to die as well. This could not be done an ocean away.

It could, however, be accomplished by less direct, if also less satisfying, ways.

Hermione was the one to mention the idea, when they realized what sort of numbers they would face.

If one could not have greater strength in numbers, then one needed a greater weapon. And muggles excelled in such an arena.

Theo was both fascinated and appalled by the tales Hermione spun of guns and bombs and poison gas. Harry only laid out their choices, of which there were many, and made the best ones he could with his limited time and knowledge.

The sooner the wizard was dead, the better.

Harry and Hermione went into the muggle world and found where such things could be bought, or found people who knew instead. For the right amount of money, nothing was secret or forbidden to them.

* * *

His muggle cousin was shocked to see him.

Dudley paled; his muscled bulk shivered.

When Harry spoke, the man trembled and nodded and then the color returned to his skin as he began to understand.

And greed came into his eyes.

The choice was easy; it takes a muggle to understand muggles, and a muggle criminal to find illegal weapons. Dudley was no longer small time; he was a young shark in a big ocean full of bigger, older sharks.

Having magic on his side might even the score. The expense of a few weapons was an easy price to pay.

* * *

His shadows each had their purpose and their own burdens, always reaching out from him in different directions.

Always at his back, always side by side.

* * *

Harry saw the longing in Theo's eyes as the boy, a man now in truth, looked at Hermione. Theo had had no lovers among the girls at Hogwarts that Harry had noticed, not since Greengrass had announced her own choice of another wizard. At times Harry had wondered if Theo had been thinking more towards his own kind, if the man's preferences ran in more than a single avenue.

Harry was selfish in his heart. He did not share. He found that the feeling also ran to this shadow, that he enjoyed being the only friend Theo had, the only male companion needed. He did not like the distraction Greengrass had been, and had not sought to turn Theo's eyes elsewhere when they again turned to Hermione.

Let his shadows gaze at one another. They would always be looking around himself from where he stood in front of them.

* * *

It was true freedom to apparate. The three had learned the summer before, but not until now really utilized the ability. With the trace fallen and gone from their wands, they hopped across the country, staying ahead of Voldemort's hunters, and playing the hunter in turn.

Peice by peice, head by head, his shadows began their slaughter.

And Harry began his war on terror.

One could run before the dogs, or one could run and turn, run and turn, slicing the throat of the lead dog until none remained but the hunter behind them.

He did not choose to number the ones they killed. There was little point to it, and putting a number and a name would only make the memory more vivid.

Harry also choose not to remember, and knew his shadows made the choice with him.

* * *

It was a simple thing to kill a man. There was an art to it, and yet an artless way to perform it. There was the simplicity of speed, or the complication of time. Harry choose simple, because Hermione did not want to see torture.

But Theo sometimes left on his own, and his was the more complicated form of giving death. Harry sometimes followed, and watched.

Sometimes, Harry was a little complicated himself.

* * *

The Daily Prophet offered a substantial reward for the heads of the group responsible for the independent slaughter of several dozen of the Ministry's aurors.

Harry thought the choice of words quite amusing, and considered the different point of views.

He supposed, now that the Ministry was Voldemort's, he and his shadows were the true Death Eaters. They were the ones hunting in the night and spreading fear.

But Harry enjoyed bringing fear to fearless men and cowards alike.

Before a month passed, wizards and witches did not put on their Death Eater robes for fear of retribution from something much more scary than the terror they could see coming. Before two months had passed and Christmas came around, Voldemort tried making his own examples.

The Dark Lord used Hogwarts.

Theo brought the news from several students he found in the Forest of Dean. They had fled the slaughter there.

Harry considered the consequences of his good choice, and wondered if that made it a bad one. He choose not to believe it was so.

* * *

Hermione was not the girl whose lips he had first touched with his own. The blood was on her now, the copper scent in her wild brown hair.

Harry thought she was all the lovelier for it, and knew Theo agreed with him.

He saw the guilt creep into Hermione's eyes even as bravery warred with it, saw the boldness grow in Theo as Harry remained silent.

He chose to believe they were both a part of him. His eyes, his hands, his skin, apart and different but his all the same.

Why would he care if his hands touched each other, if his mouth touched his mouth? It was all one and the same.

Harry could have chosen to care. He could have chosen a different kind of selfishness, a different sort of possessive rage.

It would have been a bad choice.

* * *

A week later, he came back earlier than he expected from a scouting trip, and eyed his two shadows as they wrapped around each other, eyes closed and mouths speaking without words.

Harry simply sat and began reading his latest tome on wandless theory.

When he was noticed, the silence that fell was no longer blissful.

Hermione tried to speak to him about it. She used words like _forgiveness,_ and _confused_, and _uncertainty._

_Please just talk to me, Harry. Tell me what you want. __**Talk **__to me!_

Harry really didn't see the point. Couldn't she tell that if he hadn't approved, Theo would be dead already?

Eventually, Theo himself made that point as he leaned against the wooden tent support, hands folded across his naked chest.

"Lay off him, Hermione. Does he even look surprised at your sudden confession?"

Hermione's brown eyes flickered between the two of them, then lingered on his shadow. Theo continued with a pleased smirk.

"Plus, I wouldn't be here if he minded any. I don't doubt Harry knew what was going on before I even thought of it."

_Probably_ _true._ Harry did not miss much when it came to his shadows. Hermione turned back to him, and her face was pale now.

He realized she had only just contemplated the bloodshed her choice might have caused had it been a bad one.

Harry stood with a bored yawn. Such interactions were tedious, even when he was only forced to listen as misunderstandings and explanations were solved and given.

"Harry, _wait_."

Harry paused at the exit to the magically expanded tent and looked back. Theo stood beside Hermione now, and their shadows against the ground were one and the same. He liked that.

"Just tell me its okay."

He sighed.

What word was there to say that could encompass his thoughts? What sentence could contain the idea of something like he felt accurately? He did not like to speak, did not like to put labels on ideas and feelings, caging them in boxes that could never be remade.

Once said, it was set in stone, and only with more boxed words be reforged into something new.

He thought of the Deathly Hallows, and the story Hermione had read to them. Three objects to make one the Master of Death, three objects whose symbols became one when placed together. Each a part of a whole, and yet independently whole themselves.

It was a fallacy, an inconsistency. Much of the world would agree. Three people can not be one being, though perhaps two can try.

The moment stretched out in front of him, Hermione's eyes pleading with him, Theo's dark and blank, his cold face set in sharp lines. Both of them beautiful, both of them his in different ways.

Harry finally spoke, and found his words inadequate, but a good enough choice.

"You both belong to me. Why should I care if you also belong to each other?"

* * *

When Harry chose to come for Voldemort the Dark Lord was in Hogwarts castle.

His forces were depleted; his Ministry falling into ruin as terror struck from all sides. His populace had either fled or hid from his gaze.

Only those with nothing to lose still lurked at his feet. Or those with no where else to go.

The giants had stomped through the forest a month prior, angry with promises never fulfilled. The werewolves soon followed, for the alpha of their pack was no longer Fenrir but another, wiser wolf, who disliked a one-sided battle. The dementors lurked at the edge of the forest and fed off the fear and gloom and terror, bloated monsters now, sated on souls good and bad, evil and innocent.

Harry took them first, those black robed figures, with the good choice of _Expecto Patronum._

Then he walked to the main gate and it opened before him, pale faced figures in dark robes staring out in astonishment as the _Boy-Who-Lived_, the _Man-Of-Terror_, the _Night Fiend_, walked so boldly into their stronghold.

"_You owe me this, Harry." Hermione had told him the week before, brown looking into green, skin pressed against skin as she whispered. "I want Hogwarts. I want it __**cleansed**__."_

Harry hadn't agreed or disagreed, for she was right. He owed her something for her loyalty, her love, her soft touch and sweet skin. He had left his shadows curled together in the tent they shared, brown hair mixed with black, bare skin on bare skin. He had made the choice to come alone; but he had left his shadows their own responsibility to share in the choice.

* * *

The Death Eaters did not touch him. Perhaps they thought him some apparition; perhaps they thought him a god.

But they did lead him to Voldemort, who sat upon the Headmaster's chair in the Great Hall, robed in his dark velvet, Dumbledore's wand in his hand.

Harry looked at that wand, and the pieces fell together for him, the fragments Hermione had mentioned, and he knew Dumbledore had had a plan all along that might have saved him after all. Perhaps the old fool had hoped in the legend of the Deathly Hallows, had hoped it was true what was said of them.

But Harry was only master of two, and Death would still find him, if it wished.

And unless Voldemort had killed Malfoy, the Dark Lord was not even master of one.

Voldemort laughed, the snake-horcrux curled about his shoulders, green and thin and long, a pattern of diamonds upon its back.

"So you've come. Did it disturb you, that I destroyed this precious school? That I took its students and made them mine, in death or life? That I shredded its portraits, that I painted its walls in magic and blood?"

Harry listened to the speech, let the words flow over him, never touching his mind or memory.

He would forget this man, if he chose. He would forget his words.

This wizard was only a red-eyed nightmare, a sibilant voice in his dreams, an insane man-child who was no longer completely human.

But he was human enough to die, and Death had walked inside Hogwarts beside him.

Harry heard the explosions from outside. He knew his shadows were even now doing their own work, blind and trusting and loyal. He wondered if they knew he was inside. He wondered if they had made the choice to comply with his instructions knowing that fact.

He chose to believe they had not.

The screams began. Voldemort came to his feet, mouth twisted, wand lifted.

"What have you done, _boy?! What have you done!_"

The door to the Hall opened behind them, a Death Eater staggered through, his hands upon his throat, gagging. The gas came with him, a fog upon the floor. Beside him, robed figures sprang back, yelled and cursed.

None apparated away. The wards of Hogwarts had been repaired before its broken walls.

Voldemort turned to flee. Harry's curse took the head from the serpents slithering body as it hissed, and he was pleased to see that a living horcrux did not need Fiendfyre to perish.

He hated the thought of burning himself, after all. It would have been a hard choice to make.

Voldemort whirled back, and he was shouting, sibilant words Harry could not understand and didn't need to. The other Death Eaters had fallen into confusion around them, and far off Harry heard the sound of gunfire.

Those who escaped the gas would not live to reach the edge of the wards. Theo had proved to be a better shot than either Hermione or Harry.

Harry dodged the spells the Dark Lord cast, those that came from the Elder Wand and those that did not, that bloomed from the air made from intent and raw magical strength.

Voldemort was only an eighth part of himself, only an eighth of his sanity left, his mind and memory and will fractured, an eighth of his magical strength.

The horcruxes were indeed a bad choice, for Death comes to all men, and this death was not grand.

Harry felt the gas take them both, felt his lungs seize, saw Voldemort stagger.

He felt blood rise into his mouth, felt liquid deafen his ears.

Harry's curse took Voldemort in the chest in a halo of green light, and his red-hazed eyes saw the wizard fall, lifeless. He fell to his knees beside the fallen figure and cast again, lifting the wizards head from his shoulders.

Another of his rules; _Anything worth doing is worth doing well._

Harry closed eyes now blind, raised his face to the ceiling he knew in his mind showed a wide constellation of stars in a cloudless sky, a crescent moon rising among them.

Then he lifted his wand to his scar, and made a final choice.


	9. Epilogue: Good Choices

"**It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."**

_-J.K. Rowling, the Chamber of Secrets._

* * *

Harry should have known he could not escape his choices after Death.

He merely wondered why he was faced with a squalling infant and the Headmaster he killed.

Dumbledore looked grave, his face no less haggard in death than it had been in life. In the distance, he heard a train whistle.

"This was not what I planned."

The old man mused, as he knelt beside the infant. Harry saw the baby bore red eyes. Harry chose to remain silent in death, as he had often chosen in life.

Dumbledore straightened, holding the babe.

"But I suppose it turned out alright in the end. You, my boy, have one last choice to make."

Harry lifted a brow. He had rather thought Death was final. In fact, he was counting on it, as he had sent far too many people there now to worry about them coming back.

Dumbledore sighed, looking down at the child he held.

"You do not need to remain Dead, if you wish. I am bound to tell you this, for there can be no lies here. I would quite think the world is better off without you, however."

Harry chose not to agree, though he saw the merit in such a statement. Honestly, he thought he was better off without the world.

"It was not the Hallows that saved you as I had planned. Instead, it appears you lied to me long ago, when you claimed the Stone destroyed. It has rested within you this entire time, undoing the damage you wrought upon yourself, storing up its serum in your blood, running its magic through your own. I always wondered if it was sentient; if it could choose its owners. Nicholas rather thought it was a rather boring rock that tended to sweat immortality by accident. It has given you a reprieve from Death from the poison you spread through my school."

At that, Harry finally spoke.

"Nothing can stop the Killing Curse. Not even the Philosophers Stone."

Dumbledore smiled with grim amusement.

"I'm afraid, no matter how proficient you are at casting that curse, that you failed in your latest attempt."

Harry frowned.

"I made the choice to cast it. I do not fail."

Dumbledore laughed, a mocking sound that rang and echoed against the stone walls of an abandoned train station.

"What was it you told me, my boy? _You always make good choices. _Well, it appears that fact is true. Your magic simply would not make a bad choice even when your mind told it it was so. The curse instead killed this infant, this young Horcrux, that had secreted itself away within you for the last years of your life."

Harry paused, his mind racing, and evaluated that statement.

Indeed, the killing curse _had _been a bad idea. Why kill himself twice over? His body had been dying in a particularly bad way, of course. And he had wanted to be thorough.

Harry sighed, and met the narrowed blue eyes of the man in front of him. He might as well believe the man, though he didn't agree. He had said Death prevented lies.

Harry smiled and spoke.

"Life is always a good choice."

And the world around him dissolved with the sound of an oncoming train.

* * *

When Harry awoke, he was cradled in soft arms, and there were tears on his face.

He was relieved when he realized they were not his own.

Hermione, however, dropped him in her shock and the pain in his head nearly sent him unconscious again.

"_Harry! _Oh _Merlin,_ Harry! You were _dead! _I did all the checks, oh _Merlin_, Harry, Harry, _Harry_…"

She babbled on, and Harry looked over and met Theo's eyes, and saw the happiness warring with sudden reserve.

Perhaps Theo, deep inside, would have preferred Harry stay dead, and Hermione stay his alone. But the Slytherin was only as selfish as Harry himself was, and Harry too might have felt the same were the positions reversed.

It was a good thing Hermione did not seem inclined to make a choice between the two. Either option would have been bad.

* * *

Harry let Theo make the announcement that Voldemort was dead. There were a million more choices to be made, a million decisions underway.

Hogwarts would have to be rebuilt, as would a dozen other wizarding settlements across Britain, as would Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley.

Harry decided he wanted no part in rebuilding a civilization. He would leave that to the witches and wizards who actually cared about it.

Instead, Harry chose to go on vacation, and his shadows followed him.

Theo's father had been among the Death Eaters killed at Hogwarts. Harry saw the man shed no tears over it.

Hermione's parents, on the other hand, were apparently living in Sydney, Australia, with no notion that they had a daughter.

So it was that while the entirety of wizarding Britain was celebrating the defeat of _He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named_ by _The-Man-Who-Lived-Again_, Lord Potter and Lord Nott escorted Ms. Granger to Australia to right a wrong.

* * *

Mr. Granger, Harry, and Theo sat still on the couch while Mrs. Granger and Hermione talked, explained, talked some more, and finally made the decision that more talking should be done during dinner.

Later, once the women had disappeared for more talking away from listening male ears, silence reigned for nearly ten minutes of blessed relief.

Then Mr. Granger sighed.

"At least you two don't talk a lot."

Theo and Harry exchanged glances; Theo smirked and Harry hummed in acknowledgment of the statement.

* * *

Hermione watched her mother finally accept what she had just told her, in far too many words, most of which where only hinting at the possibility that her daughter might,_ truly_, be involved with two very nice, wealthy, wizards.

At the same time.

She didn't see fit to mention that they were also dangerous killers, one of which may or may not be a psychopath and both of which at the least had a sociopathic bend.

"Is this…_ common_, among your kind?"

Hermione tried not to wince at the choice of words.

"Not exactly."

Her mom bit her lip, a gesture Hermione had inherited.

"_But_… will you get married? Will you just... _choose_ one?"

Hermione's eyes widened. She supposed being _involved_ usually did lead to _marriage_, and as far as she was aware, wizarding marriage ceremonies generally only contained _two_ parties. As did muggle ones.

"I'm not sure we have to get married. At least, not for a long time. Maybe never."

Her mother looked disappointed, and the worry only grew in her eyes. Hermione braced herself for the next question.

She felt the air leave her lungs as the words impacted.

"Well, _dear,_ how will you know who the father of your children are?"

Hermione suddenly realized that she had more things to be worried about than acceptance of a lifestyle.

She tried to imagine either Theo or Harry as fathers, and felt herself pale.

* * *

Hermione was oddly silent when they left her parents behind with several fond farewells and more words than Harry thought necessary for the situation.

She was still silent when they arrived at one of the Nott properties in the Norwegian mountains. Harry wondered if the acts they had committed in the last year had finally impacted her mind. He hoped not.

Theo was the one who approached him three days of silence later, after having held Hermione through a restless night where she tossed and turned, blubbered more than once, and ranted far too much.

Harry had left after the first hour to seek his own rest elsewhere.

Theo took up his customary position against the nearest wall, casually elegant in his wizard robes, their texture far finer than anything he had worn while they lived in a tent. The man was a pureblood Lord in every inch of his bearing, in the regal tilt of his chin, in the way he spoke and the manner in which he held Harry's gaze.

"She wants to get married."

Harry stood, looking out the wide window upon the snow covered mountains, and considered his choices. Theo continued.

"I would prefer the Nott line to not end with myself."

Another wrinkle. _Children?_ A very bad choice at the moment. Especially if they were his. Theo's voice rumbled behind him.

"Not _now_, of course. My estate is near ruin if it is not carefully managed due to the recent negligence."

Negligence was a wonderful word to describe war, murder, and the near decimation of an entire population. Harry approved. Theo sighed.

"She's a woman. They need stability. We just need to make a choice."

_Choices._ He knew how to make them, how to weed the good from the bad, the better from the worse. And Hermione was most definitely a woman. He chose to forgive her that shortcoming.

Theo moved closer, frustration edging into his tone.

"It's a simple legal matter, and has no bearing on our personal life. But I _do,_ at some point, wish to re-enter society. I am Lord Nott now, and that carries responsibility. I doubt Hermione wants to hide forever either."

Harry did. He wanted to lose himself in snow and isolation, with his books and perhaps a nice trail to run every morning and night. He would be happy never stepping again into a world that did not understand why good choices were sometimes evil. Why the right choice could also be very, very bad.

Theo sighed again, and Harry heard him run a hand through hair that had grown longer in the last month, a soft sound.

"She's talking about taking her N.E.W.T.s. Maybe attending that magical university in Greece. I told her money was no limitation, we would provide for it if she wished. We can't cage her, Harry. We can't tell her no."

Harry didn't intend to. That would be a bad choice indeed. _Did he look like a fool?_

"_Harry."_

Harry turned to face his shadow, saw the consternation plain in Theo's eyes. He decided to speak plainly, to lay out his choices years in advance. Why not? It was a good thing, to make plans, now that the future looked more kindly toward them.

"You will marry her. She will have our children in a few years. The first child is the Potter Heir; the second, yours. That should cover our familial duties, yes? She can go to whatever school she desires, whenever she wants. I can live anywhere."

Theo stared for a moment, nearly agape, but his manners were too ingrained to let the expression pass.

"I think that's the most I've ever heard you say in one sentence. _Merlin_, that's callous. Do you even _care?_"

Harry only raised an eyebrow. If he didn't care, he wouldn't have spoken.

Theo groaned in his throat.

"I'm not going to tell her _that._ She will strangle me."

Harry turned back to the window.

"Come _on_, Harry. It's not in the least romantic… Women _like _romance!"

The snow looked marvelously white outside.

"...What do you expect me to say? _'Harry has it all planned out?'_ _'Don't deviate from the Potter list of life goals?'_ She wants feeling and flowers and reassurance and…"

Harry wondered if there were trails outside the cabin. The slopes looked pretty steep if so.

"...and _children! _Should we tell her to wait until she's done with school? Should she wait to start school until after? Should we hire a housekeeper? The elves can only do so much…"

Had Theo been bottling these questions up the entire time he had known him? Where had his silent shadow gone? Harry was missing him.

"...Harry, really. We need to bring Hermione in on this. You can't just decide for us how things will be. It needs to be an actual _discussion! _Which means _actually talking!_"

Harry abruptly wanted to either hide, or kill something. Hermione solved his dilemma before he needed to make a choice.

"I've been right here the whole time, Theo. I really appreciate you trying to intermediate for me, but its not necessary."

Harry heard Theo grumble. He heard the sound of a touch, then more touches. He was glad that touching and words seldom coincided in their relationship.

Hermione spoke again, her voice soft and soothing.

"I'm going to go to Greece, come with me."

Theo murmured agreement, the man's mind apparently already fuzzy. He had noticed that Hermione did that to a wizard. It worked out nicely for her, as it usually ended with her getting her way in things. Any choice seemed good when Hermione spoke it in one's ear, while her hands worked magic.

Harry heard them leave, and rested his palms against the clear glass.

He found himself smiling in the silence.

* * *

Snape and Malfoy reappeared as suddenly as they had left the year before.

Harry had seen neither of their faces among the Death Eaters he and his shadows had slain, and suspected they had fled.

There was the small matter that Snape was wanted for Dumbledore's murder. Snapes only request was Harrys help in mending that little problem, as the price of his silence on Harry's own involvement.

When Harry met with the two, Theo and Hermione were at his back, their hands linked, and they both received strange looks from Malfoy, who seemed to prefer to skulk behind Snape.

The current Minister, voted in by an emergency session of what was left of the Wizengamot, accepted the story of the events without a single question.

Kingsley knew it would be a bad choice to question _The-Man-Who-Lived_, and he needed every scrap of public opinion he could muster.

Harry liked the large black man. He could recognize someone who understood about choices.

"I'll put out a proclamation in tomorrows paper. I suggest waiting a month or so before rejoining public life, Mr. Snape, so the news may sink in."

Snape inclined his head. Harry figured the wizard would return to Hogwarts with what was left of the staff.

Hermione had told him McGonagall had survived, as well as Flitwick and Hagrid.

Hogwarts had begun with four founders before; it could do so again.

* * *

Harry spoke most with feather light touches and hard strokes. He whimpered and moaned and only air passed his lips, but his fingers told the true story.

His magic smothered them; it rose to the surface in uncontrollable waves, at times violent, at times a contented cat, rolling over for a caress. Always it hovered like a cloud, a protective shield and yet also a cage. There would be no escape.

Harry made the choices for everyone when he was with them. He could not stop himself. Even when his mind became unfocused, when his eyes closed and his body shuddered, even then the release itself was a choice he made.

And when he chose to slip out into the night, the smell of power and electricity lingered behind him, an ever-present reminder.

* * *

Hermione lay beside Theo, their shadows lost in the dark.

Her voice whispered to him as he lay still, near sleep, her fingers tracing runic patterns on his back.

"Why does he always leave us? Why can he never spend an entire night here?"

Theo murmured back with a sleepy grumble.

"He runs. Always has."

Hermione pressed a kiss to his shoulder, rested her chin on his back.

"What is he running from?"

Theo sighed and turned, gathering her close against him.

"His good choices."

* * *

The green light broke across the sky in ripples of color, Killing Curse green, the color of his eyes.

Harry stood at the top of the mountain and laughed into the star filled night, laughed at the green light of the _aurora borealis _as it hovered above him.

It was cold, and beautiful, and good.

Wasn't that what the Christian God had said?_ It is very good._

And it was. It was all the flavors of good. Wonderful perfection, awesome majesty.

_Goodness._

The silence was only broken by the wind, by his laughter, by the beating of his heart. Harry imagined he could feel the Stone within his belly, pulsing and laughing and filling his veins with its own magic. Would it affect his children? Would he age? Would Harry always remain as he was?

Thoughts for another night.

Tonight, his good choice was to enjoy all the other good choices. He ran to embrace them, he ran always towards them, seeking them, loving them.

Theo and Hermione did not understand. Harry knew they did not. How could they? Their lives were like boats tossed on the sea of chance, they could steer and put sails up and down, manipulate their lives, but always the wind pushed them forward.

Harry could choose his wind. He could choose his sea. He could choose whether he even wished to sail.

His good choice now was freedom. Only his shadows linked him back to earth, only his shadows made him care.

Harry began his running descent, the green light marking his path, his magic making his feet light, sending him in a jumping flight at times as he flew across the mountain on strong legs, heading back to the shadows he had left below.

He had more good choices to make.

* * *

_**Finis.**_

* * *

_~A Rule: Reviews are always a Very Good Choice.~_


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